61 pages • 2 hours read
The Silent Boy
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Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “Paul, After”
Paul graduates from boarding school then attends Princeton and law school. During World War I Paul enlists with the marines; he is killed in battle outside of Paris. At this time Katy and Austin are teenagers and are falling in love.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Nell, After”
After the night when Nell gave birth and her brother was taken away, she disappears. No one ever knows where she went, but Katy always looks for her and the name Evangeline Emerson in the movies. A family friend thinks they saw someone who looks like Nell in Baltimore, working in a bar—a red-headed woman who goes by Nellie. They decide it is best for Peggy not to know, so no one tells her about the sighting.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Peggy, After”
Peggy remains with the Thatchers until Mary begins school, and then Peggy goes home and marries her admirer, Floyd Lehman. Katy gives them a set of gold-rimmed dishes like the ones Peggy admired at the Thatcher’s home for their wedding gift. Peggy and Floyd live on the Stoltz farm, taking over and renovating the house. They have three daughters, and Jacob’s dog lives with them too.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Schuyler’s Mill, After”
The mill remained in ruins for years. When Katy and Austin marry in 1928, their parents unite to buy the property for their wedding gift. Katy and Austin transform it into a home. They pave a road so that Katy can drive an automobile to and from the hospital, where she works as a doctor. They have children together, and their grandchildren love to visit them at their home. They live long lives together, with Austin passing before Katy. She says that right up until his death, he liked to sit at his desk looking out at the creek and writing. Katy says, “[S]ometimes, in my memory, I can hear the shoooda shoooda shoooda of the great grindstone and I picture the touched boy standing there, watching” (226).
Chapters 17-20 Analysis
These final chapters serve as an epilogue describing each character’s fate. Paul defies his parent’s wishes and dies in battle as a marine. This devastating end to his story encourages readers to re-examine his early years at home with Nell. What if his parents had allowed him to explore his relationship with Nell or supported her pregnancy? The Bishops pushed so hard against everything Paul wanted that he ended up joining the marines as a means of rebelling and escaping their pressure. This narrow-minded approach to what is considered proper leads to the death of Paul’s baby and Paul himself, and causes Nell’s disappearance.
The novel also questions the rigidity of social roles. Katy defies the rigidity of her role as a woman. She sets out to do everything she aspires toward, rather than limiting her interests to being just a mother or a doctor. She accomplishes everything she dreamed of as a girl: marrying her love, becoming a doctor, traveling, and having children and grandchildren. Peggy finds similar success as she creates a life like the one she admired as a young woman. She is married with a happy home and three children, living on the farm that she missed so much as a hired girl. Peggy always liked the domestic life, but earning a sense of autonomy in the roles of wife and mother gives her even more satisfaction. Finally, although Jacob disappears into the asylum with no record of his existence, Katy and Austin preserve his memory by renovating the burned mill and making the property their home. Jacob was always very happy at the mill, listening to the “shoooda shoooda shoooda” sound, and Katy keeps his memory alive there by the creek.
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