I'll Give You the Sun

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2014

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “The Invisible Museum: Noah, Age 131/2–14”

The day after Brian leaves for boarding school, Noah discovers a chat open on Jude’s laptop with messages between “Spaceboy” and “Rapunzel.” Furious and heartbroken, Noah goes on a rampage, defacing all of Jude’s doodles that are around the house, putting slugs in her socks, and dipping her toothbrush in the toilet bowl every day. One day, he hears Heather’s voice downstairs asking for him, and he escapes out the window, heading first to CSA, then to Guillermo’s studio. He climbs the fence and watches people work on stone sculptures in the yard outdoors. Guillermo himself walks into the yard, talking on the phone with someone. He looks delighted, and says “Hurry, my love” (244) into the phone, before hanging up. Guillermo then moves around the group, handing out instructions, before settling down to sketch himself. Noah is awed by Guillermo’s talent, and feeling extremely inadequate, leaves the studio. He is startled to find Dianna’s car parked a short distance; upon questioning Dianna, who was hunched over the passenger seat, she gives him vague explanations, before asking him to get in the car with her. Initially, Noah thinks that Dianna followed him because she was worried about him. Her uncharacteristically distracted nature unsettles him, and he feels like something is not right. There is an unmistakable sadness emanating from Dianna, even as she reassures Noah and tells him not to worry.

Over the next couple of months, Dianna’s behavior continues to baffle Noah. She is constantly absent-minded and lost in thought, always on the phone listening to someone, humming to herself. Noah continues to think about Brian, wondering how he will face Brian and Jude as a couple when Brian comes back for the Christmas break. One evening, he comes home to find Benjamin in his room, waiting to invite Noah out to dinner, just the two of them; Dianna and Jude are both out. Noah borrows one of Benjamin’s dinner jackets for the occasion, fitting into it perfectly after having grown three inches since the summer. He feels incredibly happy and proud about the way Benjamin looks at him. Benjamin and Noah spend dinner mostly talking about Noah and his future, and Noah is thrilled. Benjamin asks Noah about Heather, and unwilling to destroy the renewed ease with Benjamin, Noah lies about Heather being his girlfriend. When they get back home, Dianna is still out. Noah realizes that it is Benjamin’s birthday, and while no one else seems to have remembered, Noah wonders at how Dianna has forgotten it. Noah quickly sketches and gifts Benjamin a drawing of the two of them atop a blue wildebeest.

A week later, Benjamin and Dianna sit the twins down and tell them that Benjamin is moving out while they sort out some issues they are having, and Noah mind-paints “(FAMILY PORTRAIT: Assume the Crash Position)” (260). Jude immediately declares that she is going with Benjamin, and Noah surprisingly finds himself echoing this. However, Benjamin asks the kids to stay home, even as Jude rushes out, blaming Dianna for what is happening. Dianna reassures Noah that she is not leaving. Jude and Noah later stand shoulder to shoulder, in the “smush,” as they watch Benjamin leave with his suitcase. Jude tells Noah that there is nothing in the suitcase except the wildebeest drawing. Later that night, Noah is unable to sleep when Jude arrives in his room. Noah confesses that he has wished for their father to leave three times, and Jude responds that she once wished for their mother to die. Noah warns Jude to take her wish back, as he didn’t take his back in time. Jude tells Noah that nothing happened between her and Brian at the party; she was jealous of Noah for stealing all her friends and was trying to retaliate, but all Brian did was talk astronomy and praise Noah’s art. She explains that “Spaceboy” is Zephyr, whom she has a crush on. Noah is relieved, and feeling better, he tells Jude that he has seen her sand sculptures and thinks them “freaking amazing.” The twins fall asleep next to each other, feeling quiet and peaceful.

After Benjamin leaves, Dianna begins cooking and baking in a frenzy. Jude tries to resist in protest, but Noah gives in and eats her food. Noah observes that Dianna seems happier and asks her why she never cooked like this when Benjamin was around, to which Dianna immediately shuts down and responds that she doesn’t know. At the beginning of Christmas break, Brian arrives unannounced at Noah and Jude’s house. After some polite talk, he signals for Noah to follow him outside. The boys run into the woods, laughing, until Brian suddenly stops Noah and kisses him. He confesses that he had been waiting a while to do this, and they kiss again. Noah feels elated, but Brian tells him that no one can ever know about them; it would mean the end of Brian’s athletic scholarship. Noah promises him that no one will ever find out. A few days later, the boys are in Noah’s room, when Dianna walks in on them masturbating together. Brian begins to hyperventilate after Dianna leaves and tells Noah what happened to him at his old school: Some people on his team guessed that Brian was gay based on a website he h visited, and began to bully him, making it difficult for him to play. Brian is terrified that someone at his new school will find out and he will be harassed again, and he ends things with Noah before he leaves. Dianna comes to talk to Noah later and he yells at her, his frustration about Brian causing him to lash out at Dianna about making Benjamin leave.

The next morning, Noah heads to Dianna’s room to ask her not to tell Benjamin, and he overhears her talking to someone on the phone, saying “Something happened with Noah yesterday” (282). Assuming that Dianna is on her way to tell Benjamin what happened the previous night, Noah follows her. Dianna heads to the cliff, but it is Guillermo who meets her there. As Noah watches them kiss, he pieces together that Dianna is having an affair with the sculptor. Upset, he runs back home, and comes across Brian and Courtney holding hands on the way, Courtney’s lipstick smudged on Brian’s face. A hurt and frustrated Noah tells Courtney that Brian is gay, immediately regretting it as he watches Brian’s face crumple. Noah rushes home and sketches Dianna and Guillermo kissing, desperate to get the image out of his head. He looks for Brian and Jude, but can’t find either. Noah comes back home to find Dianna with the drawing. She apologizes for Noah having had to find out the way he did but confesses her love for Guillermo and tells Noah that she is going to ask Benjamin for a divorce. She wants to tell Jude the truth herself. Distraught at the realization that Dianna is going to marry Guillermo, Noah walks away from her, even as she asks: “You can’t help who you love, can you?” (291).

Chapter 6 Summary: “The History of Luck: Jude, Age 16”

Jude lies in bed at night thinking about Oscar kissing the girl, as well as Noah, who gave her a vague reason as to why he was near Guillermo’s studio. Unable to sleep, she wanders around the house, stumbling upon her mother’s things in her parents’ bedroom and missing her deeply as she remembers Dianna. Jude remembers how Noah used to cry every night for four months straight after Dianna’s death. Suddenly, she has an idea to make things a little better for Noah. Jude looks up Brian on the internet and discovers articles about him having come out as gay. Two years before, Brian chose to make a public declaration that won him immense support. This, coupled with his excellent performance on the pitch, secured him team captainship and a scholarship to Stanford. Jude finds Brian’s email ID on the Stanford website and emails him a link to Noah’s posts on the Lost Connections website, hoping that Brian will finally respond.

Jude heads to the studio the next day but backtracks to the church when she overhears Guillermo and Oscar arguing. She returns an hour later, and she and Guillermo work on stone sculptures alongside each other. As she cuts into the stone, she remembers how she wasn’t around the evening that Dianna died. Noah told Jude that Dianna was driving out to reconcile with Benjamin, and Jude regrets missing Dianna hear how they were all going to be a family again. After Dianna died, Noah sobbed endlessly, and would tell Jude that she didn’t know Dianna like he did. This, coupled with how he jumped off Devil’s Drop, made Jude so angry, that when Benjamin dropped Jude off to mail her and Noah’s applications to CSA, she only mailed her own. She felt guilty but was too scared to confess. Eventually, only her acceptance arrived, and Noah destroyed all his artwork. Jude works for hours, cutting into the stone, while she hears Grandma and Dianna repeatedly chanting at her, “You crushed his dreams” (306). Jude pauses, struck by another idea: She will give up her spot at CSA for Noah. From the computer in Oscar’s room, she emails Sandy, requesting a meeting with him where Noah will also be present, then texts Noah asking to talk to him urgently. Jude takes Guillermo’s love note that is lying on Oscar’s table and slips it back into Guillermo’s notebook, before heading back out and asking Guillermo to teach her how to use the diamond blade circular saw. With it, she splits the sculpture of the conjoined Noah and Jude in two. To Guillermo’s exclamation that she has killed them, she responds that she has saved them.

As Jude walks home, she receives a message from Heather about Noah being drunk and wanting to jump Dead Man’s Dive, another high jump overlooking the sea. Jude rushes to the beach and runs into Fry. Jude despises Fry, because after she lost her virginity to Zephyr, Fry insinuated to Jude that all the other boys would take their turn with her. Jude kneed him in the testicles before rushing home, desperate to find Dianna, only to be met with the news that she had died in a car crash. As Jude asks Fry for Noah’s whereabouts, Zephyr appears, pointing her to where Noah has climbed a cliff twice the height of Dead Man’s Dive. Zephyr follows Jude as she makes her way to the cliff, assuring her that he has Noah’s back, as he once promised her years ago. He asserts that he has Jude’s back, too, to which Jude retorts that she was too young. She spits on Zephyr and hits him, yelling at him to never do again to another girl what he did to her. They reach the cliff, and Jude grabs Noah to prevent him from jumping, but he shakes her off and she falls backwards, hitting her head and losing consciousness. When she comes to, she sees Oscar on top of Noah, having tackled him before he could jump.

Jude is astonished to see Oscar and Noah greet each other as if they have met before, and Oscar states that he once modeled for Noah. Jude thanks Oscar for saving Noah’s life, even though she is still angry with Oscar. Noah states that it is not Oscar, but Dianna who saves his life every time: No matter the height he jumps from, Dianna slows his fall; Jude realizes that she has seen this happen. Noah asserts that it is the only time Dianna forgives him, confusing Jude by stating that everything is a “big lie,” but she will find out soon enough. As Oscar, Jude, and Noah walk back, Oscar apologizes to Jude. Guillermo said some harsh but true things to Oscar earlier, which caused him to take a good look at himself. He gives Jude a seashell that belonged to his mother, and Jude is moved. They walk the rest of the way holding hands.

Jude works on completing the sketches for Dianna’s sculpture later that night as Noah sleeps off his drunkenness. She takes out Guillermo’s old smock which she borrowed to use as a sample to sew him a new one, and she finds more drafts of notes to Dearest, all asking her to marry him. Suddenly she hears knocking at the window and realizes that Oscar is outside. She puts on one of the dresses she has made, “a coral-colored, tight-fitting mermaid shape that flares and ruffles at the bottom” (327), before letting him in. Oscar is stunned to see how she looks and kisses her. Seeing his face in the moonlight, Jude finally realizes where she has seen Oscar before, recognizing him from Noah’s portrait. Oscar confesses to how deeply he feels about Jude, and she shows him Noah’s ripped up painting of Oscar, telling him how she came to have it. Oscar is delighted and declares Jude and him to be “split-aparts,” Plato’s conception of soulmates separated into two different bodies by Zeus. Jude tells Oscar about the love note she found, and Oscar tells Jude that Guillermo will tell her about his lover one day. Oscar has promised Guillermo that he will not share the story, though he declares Guillermo and Dearest to have been “split-aparts,” too. Oscar suddenly catches sight of the family picture on Jude’s dresser. He realizes that Noah is not just Jude’s brother but her twin, and rushes back home immediately exclaiming that “Guillermo doesn’t know” (336), leaving Jude in the dark.

Chapters 5-6 Analysis

These chapters see several significant plot points come together. Noah spots Dianna outside Guillermos’s studio, just as Jude spots Noah in the same place some years later; this mirroring of events demonstrates Guillermo’s importance as a character key to the plot. As foreshadowed, Noah inadvertently discovers Dianna’s affair with Guillermo shortly after Dianna does the same with Noah and Brian. A third mirroring of events displays how Jude finally realizes where she recognizes Oscar from, followed by Oscar realizing Jude’s connection to Dianna. Along a separate thread, the story reveals what it is that Jude seeks forgiveness from Dianna from: She never mailed Noah’s application to CSA, an act born from the culmination of jealousy, anger, and heartbreak.

A huge aspect of the plot in these chapters is the breaking and remaking of relationships. Noah and Benjamin reach a better place in their relationship when Benjamin takes Noah out to dinner and focuses the conversation on Noah. Noah still experiences inhibition, particularly with revealing the truth about his sexual orientation to Benjamin. The dinner marks a positive turning point in Benjamin and Noah’s relationship; when Benjamin later leaves the house, the only thing he takes with him is Noah’s wildebeest drawing of them together.

Just as Noah and Benjamin recover, Noah’s relationship with Dianna heads in the opposite direction. From her distracted and absent-minded state of being to the role she plays in breaking up the family, and Noah’s discovery of her affair, Noah’s image of his mother continues to break down, until the last thing he says to her before she dies is that he hates her. Noah’s resentment towards Dianna is also compounded by the fact that she inadvertently brought about the end of his and Brian’s relationship. Dianna walking in on them immediately throws them off-course, with Brian ending things for fear of the news of sexuality affecting his baseball career. Noah’s heartbreak over the break-up is mixed up with his anger towards Dianna; in an inverse of this, Brian becomes the object of Noah’s pain and anger over Dianna’s affair when Noah outs Brian to Courtney.

In the future timeline, Jude and Oscar finally come together, with Oscar apologizing for his behavior and confessing the depth of his feelings for Jude, as well as Jude recognizing Oscar from Noah’s drawing. Besides forging a new relationship, Jude also attempts to repair the existing relationships in her life and make things right. She looks up Brian on Noah’s behalf, hoping to facilitate a reconciliation between the boys; she also has the idea of giving up her spot at CSA for Noah. Attempting to steal Brian and actively destroying Noah’s chances at CSA are the two things Jude feels guilty about with respect to her estranged relationship with Noah; these redemptive acts are her attempts to reconnect with her brother. Jude’s actions represent a turning point with respect to the theme of Sibling Rivalry, highlighted by Jude sawing her sculpture of a conjoined Noah and Jude in half. She tells Guillermo that she is not destroying the siblings, but saving them; she is finally separating them enough from each other’s resentments, heartbreaks, and dreams, so that they can live their own, separate identities.

Jude’s attempt at redemption also points to the idea of a balance being maintained in the universe, in concurrence with the theme of Love, Luck, and Destiny. Jude is seen consciously trying to right the wrongs she committed. She confronts Zephyr pressuring her into sex two years ago, restoring balance to her inner self and gaining closure. Brian is another recipient of the universe’s maintenance of balance: Where he was once harassed and traumatized for his sexual orientation, he is now accepted and celebrated for it. The existence of balance and justice in the universe point to the idea of destiny, in that the way certain things unfold are out of one’s hand. This is highlighted by Dianna telling Noah that one can’t help whom one loves, an idea echoed in Jude and Oscar’s conversation about Plato’s “split-aparts.”

Elements of the supernatural are also at play in these chapters. Jude discovers that she is not the only one who has been feeling their dead mother’s presence, as Noah believes Dianna is the one who slows his fall and saves him every time he jumps. Foreshadowing also occurs in moments that take on prophetic traits. As Benjamin leaves and Noah tells Jude that he wished for this to happen in the past, Jude confesses that she wished Dianna dead; this comes to pass, just as Noah’s wish came true. Dianna also tells Noah not to worry about anything, in an echo of something Brian once told Noah; as is the case with Brian and Noah, things with Noah and Dianna, too, eventually fall apart.