The Institute

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7, Chapters 1-28

Part 7, Chapters 29-42

Part 8

Part 9

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 7, Chapters 29-42Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 7: “Hell Is Here”

Part 7, Chapters 29-31 Summary

Annie spots three vans heading for the sheriff’s station. The vehicles stop, and the passengers take out guns. Recognizing what is happening as “the conspiracy” after Luke, Annie runs to the barbershop and convinces Drummer Denton to open his gun locker.

At the sheriff’s station, the deputies watch footage of Ward A: They see filthy, half-starved children eating from troughs, making meaningless sounds and gestures, and lying on cots staring vacantly at the ceiling.

The footage ends, and Luke feels sick. He asks to step outside for air, and Tim and Deputy Wendy Gullickson accompany him. Outside, Luke sees a couple approaching the station—and recognizes the woman from his kidnapping.

Back at the Institute, Avery and his friends release the Ward A children and lead them through the tunnel between Back Half and Front Half—only to be trapped behind a locked door. Seeing no other alternative, they telepathically reach out to Luke for help.

Part 7, Chapters 32-36 Summary

Luke, Tim, and Wendy return to the front office, where the suspicious couple is speaking with Sheriff Ashworth. Luke runs into the room, shouting that the woman killed his parents. When the Sheriff asks the couple for identification, they pull out guns. Tim shoots the woman, and Luke uses his telekinesis to move the man’s gun before he shoots Tim.

Outside, Mrs. Sigsby’s team opens fire on the station, blowing out the front windows and killing Sheriff Ashworth and most of the deputies. Afterward, Mrs. Sigsby orders her team to retrieve Luke. Annie and Drummer interrupt them, carrying guns from the latter’s private armory.

Mrs. Sigsby orders two of her team to keep their guns on Annie and Drummer and the rest to enter the sheriff’s station with her. Within minutes, more DuPray townsfolk arrive and overpower the gunmen outside the station.

Part 7, Chapters 37-42 Summary

Mrs. Sigsby enters the sheriff’s station and demands that they turn over Luke. Luke grabs the flash drive. Tim and Wendy take out the rest of the retrieval team and shoot a shocked Mrs. Sigsby in the leg.

Luke uses Mrs. Sigsby’s phone to call Stackhouse. Back at the Institute, Stackhouse works out a plan to poison the trapped children by pumping chlorine gas into the HVAC system. His phone rings. Stackhouse hears Luke’s voice before Tim comes on the line. Tim tells Stackhouse about the flash drive and demands an exchange—the drive for the children. Stackhouse agrees to the exchange; Tim and Luke head for Mrs. Sigsby’s jet with the woman in tow.

Part 7, Chapters 29-42 Analysis

The Ward A children live up to the novel’s Pleasure Island references—they descend to animalism, eating out of troughs. The parallel isn’t perfect, as the children kidnapped by the Institute are innocent, whereas the boys on Pleasure Island are not—but innocence isn’t enough to protect the former. If ordinary people are to survive against evil, loving each other as Luke’s friends do is more than a virtue. It is nothing less than survival.

Annie’s belief in conspiracies saves the day when she suspects the Institute’s three vans of malice. Tim describes Annie in her serape and sombrero as resembling a hero from a Spaghetti Western—but there are no lone heroes in this story. Annie and Drummer aren’t enough to stop Mrs. Sigsby; it literally takes a village to disarm Mrs. Sigsby’s gunmen. Once again, evil is not conquered by a solitary hero but ordinary people caring for each other.

Mrs. Sigsby is relatively normal within the confines of the Institute, surrounded by people who share her worldview—but by the time she reaches DuPray, she seems to have lost her sense of reality. She arrives with an armed team, so she clearly recognizes that they may need to fight, but even after killing Sheriff Ashworth and several deputies, she expects to retrieve her missing property (Luke) without resistance.

Mrs. Sigsby can’t comprehend why Deputy Wendy shoots her to protect Luke. By Mrs. Sigsby’s own measure, she is entitled to her property and expects others to recognize her authority even outside the Institute. She forgot, if she ever knew, that people form emotional attachments. With the gunshot, she is hurt by something that barely seems real to her, and this realization seems to shock her back into a degree of rationality.

Luke’s next move is to engage Stackhouse and keep him preoccupied while his friends prepare. For all their growing power, they are still at Stackhouse’s mercy. Once again, power alone is not enough; love will allow the children to save themselves.