The Fort

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-10

Chapters 11-21

Chapters 22-33

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Troubled Lives

None of the boys who take refuge at the fort are living easy lives. Each one harbors a private source of anxiety that they conceal from one other. Evan and Luke have been abandoned by their parents, who are addicted to drugs. The couple frequently stole and pawned items to support their habit and were in and out of rehab before leaving their children completely. Now, the boys have been taken in by their grandparents. Evan copes with the humiliation by avoiding any mention of it. Luke copes by attaching himself to Jaeger, hoping to become tough enough to face the world on his own.

Mitchell struggles with OCD and has difficulty concentrating while in school. He is constantly fearful of ordinary situations and people, making it difficult for his friends to tolerate him at times. To add to Mitchell’s miseries, his mother is struggling financially after being laid off from her factory job. She no longer has health insurance that will pay for Mitchell’s therapy sessions, so his mental state becomes more uncertain.

Jason is caught in the middle while his parents argue their way through a messy divorce. In their battle for ownership, they carve up Jason like any other possession. Their joint custody arrangement disrupts his life by forcing him to live in two separate homes that are miles apart. His only source of stability is his relationship with Janelle, and he clings to that oasis of calm desperately.

Ricky faces the least amount of stress in his home life, but school and socializing are difficult because he is the new kid in town. Further, he is intellectually gifted and once attended a magnet school. These two facts make his peer group automatically treat him with hostility. The other boys at the fort have known one another their entire lives, and they resent an intruder. If Ricky hadn’t been the one to stumble across the exposed hatch to the bunker, he would have led an entirely isolated life in his new town.

The most extreme example of a troubled life is C.J. Like Evan, he is ashamed of his family problems and would just as soon pretend they don’t exist. C.J. goes to absurd lengths to camouflage his injuries by performing stunts on his skateboard or bike that are guaranteed to get him hurt. C.J. keeps silent about his stepfather’s abuse because his mother is in denial about the entire situation and wouldn’t support him even if he did complain to the police. All the boys who seek refuge in the fort would scorn the notion that childhood is a carefree time.

A Family of Friends

The adults in the novel seem to be oblivious to the misery of the children under their care. Grandma Donnelly is hypercritical, especially toward Luke. Although she pities Evan because he is so young, she never expresses those sentiments in front of him. Mitchell’s mother is too exhausted from working three jobs to notice that her son is urinating in his former therapist’s herb garden. Jason’s parents are too busy fighting about a cactus to notice that they are making their son miserable. C.J.’s mother is so concerned about maintaining the illusion of a happy family that she is willing to see her son land in the emergency room rather than intervene in her husband’s abuse. While Ricky’s parents aren’t thoughtless or cruel, the very act of moving to Canaan sets their son up for abuse at school because he is new.

None of the boys have anywhere to turn but toward each other. They form a support network to compensate for the failure of their caregivers. Ricky articulates this notion best when he contemplates C.J.’s dire plight: “C.J. has a backup family—his friends. He’s part of a group so tight that I’m still on the outside even after weeks of trying to fit in. They’ll support him. I’m positive” (143). The boys demonstrate their willingness to care for each other on a number of occasions. They use their initial windfall from pawning silverware to get Mitchell’s phone repaired since he can’t afford it himself. Later, Jason will try to pawn a shrimp fork so that Mitchell can buy his mother a present.

For his part, Mitchell refuses to betray his friends even when Jaeger and Luke threaten him. He locks himself up at home so they won’t have the opportunity to press him for information. Evan and Ricky do the same when Jaeger bullies them. The boys close ranks to protect themselves from intruders by devising an elaborate messaging system and the code name “Peru” when texting about the fort.

The greatest evidence of their support for one another is the way they confront and then protect C.J. After learning that he has been living at the fort rather than going home, they take turns bringing him to their houses for a hot meal and a shower. They launder his clothes with their own so he can be presentable at school. In the end, they all join forces to disable Jaeger and turn him over to the police. It takes the joint efforts of close-knit friends to teach the adults what it means to be a part of a family.

The Burden of Secrecy

The fort offers an exhilarating feeling of exclusivity to the group that discovers it. It becomes a secret that they must guard from outsiders. Unfortunately, what started out as an exciting adventure turns into a frightening burden as the story advances. Initially, Jason is forced to keep the secret of the fort from Janelle after they promised not to keep anything from each other. Over time, he needs to develop elaborate excuses to keep her from becoming suspicious when he doesn’t spend time with her.

A much bigger problem looms when Jaeger and Luke start wondering how the younger boys came into so much cash so suddenly. They pressure and threaten each of the boys in turn, hoping to divide and conquer them that way. Even though everyone keeps the secret, they fear that it will only be a matter of time before their tormentors learn the truth. Jaeger and Luke even chase C.J. through the woods and nearly catch him on the way to the bunker.

Aside from the burden of keeping the fort a secret, the boys are burdened by private secrets that they fear to share with each other. When Evan’s parents start stealing and pawning items around town, he doesn’t want his friends to know. However, he has become only too well acquainted with the owners of all the local pawn shops. Mitchell secretly urinates on Dr. Breckinridge’s herb garden but keeps this fact from his friends. When Jaeger and Luke catch him, he is terrified they will report him to the police.

Of course, the most burdensome secret belongs to C.J. He stubbornly refuses to share his private misery with his friends, especially when they are praising his stepfather’s generosity: “the last thing I want to do is drag my friends into a giant mess that they wouldn’t be able to help with anyway. It’s my problem, not theirs” (75). C.J.’s determination to go it alone could get him killed. Similarly, his mother refuses to acknowledge, much less correct, the problems occurring under her roof. Because C.J.’s mother won’t back him up, he assumes nobody will believe his story of Marcus’s abuse. This debilitating situation might have continued indefinitely if not for the newcomer who breaks the deadlock. It takes an outsider to see what insiders won’t admit. Once Ricky witnesses Marcus’s anger on full display, he draws the appropriate conclusion and rescues C.J. from the secrets he refuses to reveal on his own.

Related Titles

By Gordon Korman

Study Guide

Born to Rock

The Fort

Themes

Troubled Lives

A Family of Friends

The Burden of Secrecy

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