52 pages • 1 hour read
Katherine PatersonJacob Have I Loved
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1980A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Louise’s resentment towards Caroline grows, even as they continue to exist in close proximity. Louise comes home from crabbing covered in dirt and sweat, and Caroline’s remark on her dirty fingernails sends Louise into a “wounded rage” (73) that amounts to hatred. Louise repeatedly dreams of Caroline’s death, and occasionally of killing her with her own hands. Her Methodist upbringing dictates that hate is tantamount to murder, causing Louise to fear for her soul. She searches the Bible for examples of God’s forgiveness, even as she resents the injustice of her position. The only place she feels any peace is on the water, and she makes plans to increase her crab catch over the summer to by saving money to attend boarding school on the mainland. In leaving the island, Louise imagines that she will also be able to escape her religious and emotional conflicts.
In the meantime, Louise enters a lyrics competition with a cash prize. She writes a song and shares it with Call, who is unappreciative. His lack of support injures her pride, but after a week she gathers her courage to mail in her entry. News of the war continues to dominate the papers. Of particular interest to Louise is information about several Germans who reached Long Island, New York, by submarine before being caught. This reminds Louise of her early suspicions that the Captain was a German spy. Though she no longer believes this, she still wonders why the Captain, if he is indeed Hiram Wallace, would return to the island after so many decades away.
Chapter 7 Summary
School ends for the summer in May 1942. Call and Louise visit the Captain every day, though Louise does not entirely like or trust the Captain. She senses that Call and the Captain are growing close to each other and feels left out of certain aspects of their relationship. She is unhappy when Call volunteers them both to help the Captain repair his old house for free. The summer she turns 14 becomes even more difficult when Louise gets her first period on a Sunday morning and must miss church as a result. Her grandmother demands to know the reason for her absence, despite Caroline and Susan’s attempts to keep the secret.
Chapter 8 Summary
As the heat and humidity of August settle on Chesapeake Bay, Louise wishes for both a weather and an emotional release. She receives what appears to be a positive response to her song lyrics, but quickly realizes that the contest was a scam to steal money from the entrants. The next day, an orange tomcat interrupts Louise and Call’s visit with the Captain. The Captain demands that someone return the cat to its owner, Trudy Braxton, and Louise volunteers. The Captain’s use of Trudy’s first name—rather than calling her Auntie Braxton like the rest of the islanders—provides proof that the Captain really is Hiram Wallace. Knowing that he is someone born on Rass Island who then “escaped” it makes Louise more fascinated with him.
Louise arrives at Auntie Braxton’s house and finds her motionless on the floor and seemingly dead. The Captain, however, determines that she is still breathing and enlists Louise and Call to help get her to the mainland hospital. In the midst of the crisis, the Captain addresses Louise as “Sara Louise,” rather than “Wheeze.” Though she does not think he did so intentionally, she is moved by the gesture.
Chapter 9 Summary
Calling Auntie Braxton “Trudy” confirms the Captain’s identity throughout the village. While Auntie Braxton recovers in the hospital, the Captain convinces Louise and Call to help clean out her house, which is dilapidated and overrun with feral cats. The Captain shares stories about Trudy when they were both younger, admitting that his mother wanted him to marry her. He also explains that Trudy’s father left her an enormous amount of money when he died, but she does not appear to have used any of it. The Captain wonders where all the money went.
As they clean Trudy’s house, they must confront the problem of the stray cats. The Captain concludes that they should dispose of them by taking them out on a boat and drowning them. Louise objects but helps catch all the cats in large sacks. However, as they head out to open water on the boat, one cat meows sadly and Louise cannot go through with it. She jumps off the boat and swims back to shore, running home in tears. She is so distraught that she even tells Caroline what happened.
Louise and Caroline return to Trudy’s house to find that the Captain and Call did not drown the cats. Caroline proposes having the villagers each adopt one cat and suggests drugging the cats with a tiny bit of Paregoric (an old medication made with opium) to make them docile just long enough to trick people into accepting them. Caroline’s ability to charm each person also helps. After all the cats have been adopted, Call and the Captain both praise Caroline. Louise once again feels ignored and neglected.
Chapter 10 Summary
As a violent storm finally approaches the island, villagers prepare for it by tying down their boats and covering the windows of their houses. Call, Caroline, and Louise help the Captain prepare his and Auntie Braxton’s houses, though Louise resents that Caroline is now included. Truitt invites the Captain to stay the night at the Bradshaw house, but the Captain declines.
As the storm comes in that night, Truitt wakes Louise to tell her to go bring the Captain back up to the house. The wind is worse than predicted, and their house is safer than the Captain’s waterfront home. Louise and the Captain struggle against the wind to return to the Bradshaws’ house where Susan and Grandma are waiting. Grandma is afraid and the Captain offers to read to her from the Bible, calling her by her given name, Louise. But Grandma rebuffs him, calling him a heathen. Truitt tells his mother to hush, and the Captain reads a passage from the Psalms that mentions mountains. Louise, who has never seen mountains, resolves not to stay on the island and “shrivel up” (125) with fear like her grandmother. Louise falls asleep as the storm rages.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
In this section, the sibling rivalry between Louise and Caroline intensifies, becoming increasingly entwined with Louise’s religious doubts. Caroline has the singular ability to “slice [Louise’s] flesh clear through to the bone” (73) with a single glance. Louise realizes she hates her sister, though her Methodist faith dictates that feelings of hate are “the equivalent of murder” (74). The dreams that Louise has about her sister’s death suggest the extent to which she has suppressed her anger and hatred, which then trigger her sense of religious guilt. Having been taught that hatred is tantamount to murder itself—an allusion to the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5—Louise becomes convinced that God has marked her out for damnation. She concludes that she must be like Cain, who killed his brother Abel in Genesis. Faced with her feelings of wickedness and guilt, and without any other outlet, Louise rages against God and “his monstrous almighty injustice” (76). Chapter 8, however, offers a brief reprieve from the more serious religious overtones. The Captain utters a mild oath when the tomcat breaks a cup, shocking Call but thrilling Louise, who finds relief in the idea that “there’s not one word in the whole blasted Bible on how to speak with cats” (96). Nevertheless, when the storm rages on Rass Island, the Captain and the Bradshaws reflexively turn to the Bible for comfort, a fact that again suggests the complexity of Louise’s position as she continues Struggling With God in a Religious Society and pursues her Search for Identity and Independence.
Auntie Braxton’s health emergency and the late summer storm reveal Louise as someone able to keep a clear head in a crisis, earning her the respect of both the Captain and her father, and alleviating some of her resentment towards Caroline. Louise grows closer to the Captain, beginning to see him as friendly, wise, and funny. She is especially grateful for the moment he calls her “Sara Louise.” However, after the incident with the stray cats, where Caroline enjoys the credit for adopting them out rather than drowning them, Louise begins to worry that her sister will steal away both Call and the Captain. Indeed, neither Call nor the Captain acknowledges Louise’s part in refusing to drown the cats. Instead, they praise Caroline for her clever idea of drugging the cats to make them docile enough for adoption, forgetting Louise’s role entirely. Louise once again believes that she has been relegated to the background: “I felt as I always did when someone told the story of my birth” (114). Thus, a relatively minor moment in a sibling rivalry becomes one more piece of evidence for Louise’s preordained isolation. Moreover, Louise is unable to prevent Caroline from joining her and Call when they help the Captain board up his windows before the storm.
The hurricane that takes place in Chapter 10 marks a significant divergence between Louise and Caroline’s experiences. While Truitt wakes Louise and sends her to get the Captain, Caroline remains asleep. Truitt and Susan, along with Grandma, Louise, and the Captain, stay up most of the night as the storm floods the first floor of the house. Caroline sleeps through the entire event; their father tells Louise not to wake her, even though Louise realizes that she herself would never want to miss a storm like this. While there is a small note of resentment in Louise’s comment that “Caroline probably would have slept through the Last Trumpet” (121-22), it is Louise who has the richer experience on this night, precisely because her parents do not need to shield her from the storm and know they can count on her in a crisis. However, the 14-year-old Louise seems not to register this fact, as she continues to be caught up in Sibling Rivalry and Its Emotional Impact.
Related Titles
By Katherine Paterson
