111 pages • 3 hours read
A List of Cages
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BetaChapters 52-54Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 52 Summary
This three-page chapter is narrated by Adam as he's still sitting in the hospital. He has been there for two days, ever since Julian was admitted. Julian finally speaks and asks Adam if school is out for the summer. When Adam tells Julian that the school is not on summer vacation yet and it’s still this school year, Julian thinks Adam is wrong because "[he] was [in the trunk] for so long" (242). Julian explains how he counted while he was in the “shell,” and the shell disappeared, and he didn't know where he was. Adam tells Julian he was not in a shell; he was in a trunk.
Chapter 53 Summary
This chapter is narrated by Adam, who is at Julian's bedside in the hospital room with Delores Carter, Julian's legally appointed guardian, and Adam's mother, Catherine. Officer Clark enters the room to speak with Julian, and Julian stutters through his story about being locked in the trunk. When Clark asks Julian where Russell is now, Julian says he might be at work. Clark snaps at Julian, saying Russell hasn't worked in over a year. Adam suspects Clark doesn't believe Julian and asks Clark for time with just Julian. Clark tells Adam to wait outside; Adam looks over at Julian's terrified face. Adam tells the officer that Julian wants him to stay. Clark accuses Adam of refusing to leave the room in a "deliberate tone that sounds like a dare" (246). Catherine suddenly steps in front of Adam, but the officer insists she take two steps back. Adam retorts with, "'Yeah, because she's such a threat'" (246). Clark says that if Adam doesn't stop talking, he's going to arrest him. Adam tells Clark that he can't arrest him for talking; Clark says he can arrest Adam for interfering with a criminal investigation. Catherine grabs Adam's arm and tells him to leave. Adam retaliates, but Catherine grabs his shirt and tells him to go. Carter shakes her head when Adam opens his mouth to say something else. Adam leaves the room after telling Julian he'll be right outside the door.
Chapter 54 Summary
This chapter is narrated by Julian as he wakes up from his hospital bed to find Adam asleep in the chair next to him. A nurse is in the room, cheerfully ready to help him to shower, but Adam says he'll help Julian instead.
Julian closes the shower curtain and feels like "the space shrinks to nothing" (249). He tears at the curtain, yanks the bathroom door open and falls out. When Adam asks him what happened, Julian says he doesn't know. Adam tells Julian he doesn't have to shower now if he doesn't want to, but Julian remembers Russell telling Julian that sometimes he stinks, so Julian makes another attempt at trying to shower while Adam leans against the bathroom wall. Julian finishes his shower and Adam presses the button to tell the nurse to come back in to reattach his IV, blood, and pulse monitors.
Chapters 52-54 Analysis
The main focus of these chapters are Julian and Adam's internal psychological struggles while Julian is being cared for in the hospital.
Julian is having trouble regaining his sense of reality. His sense of real time is distorted because his time in the trunk seemed like "'it was a thousand years,'" and Julian finds it hard to believe that it could have been only a maximum of nineteen days that he was in the trunk (243). Adam has to correct him. He tells Julian he was not in a shell; he was in a trunk. When Julian is in the shower, his knees buckle, and Julian is "looking up for something, for stars" (249).
Julian’s emotional state is very fragile, and he feels a lack of power over his body. Julian says there are hundreds of embarrassing things that have happened to him since he arrived in the hospital, and that "they ask personal questions, touch you in personal places, and they don't care who is in the room to see it" (248).
Not only is Julian dealing with coming back to a state of reality, and maintaining his dignity with the staff, but he's also having problems exerting any energy. Everything seems hard for Julian now: untying his hospital gown, thinking, and even breathing take a lot of effort.
Adam is also struggling emotionally in these chapters, and his condition intensifies in subsequent chapters. In Chapter 52, Adam says that he "went years without crying, but now it's like [he] can't stop" (243). In Chapter 53, he shows not only intense anger towards Officer Clark, but for the first time in the novel he shows anger towards his mother, when she doesn't stand up to Clark.
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