Prejudice, Intolerance, And Acceptance Theme Analysis - LitCharts
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Guides Sign In Sign up for A+ Sign up Introduction Intro Plot Summary Plot Summary & Analysis Themes - All Themes
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Survival, Necessity, and Violence -
Independence vs. Human Connection -
Education, Coming of Age, and Adulthood -
Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance
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LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Where the Crawdads Sing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. 
Delia Owens sets Where the Crawdads Sing against a backdrop of prejudice and intolerance. This is perhaps best illustrated by the social stratification of the area in which Kya grows up, a place in North Carolina divided not only by race, but by class, too. Although Kya—who’s white—doesn’t face racial discrimination like her African American friends, Jumpin’ and his wife, Mabel, she experiences unfair judgment based on her socioeconomic status, receiving harsh treatment from the townspeople simply because she lives in a shack in the marshlands. When Kya is forced to go to school, she only attends for one day because the other children ostracize her for being different, laughing at her lack of a formal education and refusing to interact with her because of her low status in society. It is this cruelty—this unwillingness to accept Kya simply because she’s different—that her lawyer, Tom Milton, reminds the townspeople of when Kya is accused of murdering Chase Andrews. Asking the jury to consider how unfairly people have treated Kya, he urges them to finally recognize her humanity instead of assuming the worst of her. To do this, he underlines the fact that the only thing that makes Kya different is that she was abandoned by her family as a child. By saying this, he forces the jury to reconsider prejudices they’ve come to take for granted. That Kya is then found not guilty suggests that this is a powerful, deeply affecting mental exercise, one that helps people examine the ways in which unfair biases influence the way they treat others.
The geographical landscape of Where the Crawdads Sing is significant, since its various divisions very clearly indicate the biases of Kya’s surrounding community. The coastal region where Kya lives is broken up into three primary sections: the “Colored Town,” the comparatively affluent village known as Barkley Cove, and the swampy wilderness that is sparsely populated by “squatters” like Kya and—before they leave—her family. To put it simply, only people from Barkley Cove receive any respect from the average white person in the area. In terms of race relations, this is unfortunately not surprising for a southern state in the 1940s. What’s interesting, though, is that white people like Kya and her family also face discrimination (albeit of a different kind). This is because the areas in the marsh where people like Kya and her family live have historically attracted “mutinous sailors, castaways, debtors, and fugitives.” Since these groups of people don’t typically command much respect in society, people looking for “serious land” when the area was first colonized avoided the swamps. Consequently, the very fact that Kya lives in this marshy area makes her a target of the surrounding community’s firmly established, classist belief that anyone who doesn’t conform to the lifestyle of their wealthy society ought to be avoided and scorned.
Although she rarely ventures into Barkley Cove, Kya is quite aware of the townspeople’s unwillingness to accept her. When she and her father do decide to eat in town one night, a woman screams at her for getting too close to her daughter. Without caring if Kya hears, she talks about how she wishes “those people” wouldn’t come into town at all, calling Kya “filthy” and claiming that people from the marsh carry serious diseases. Later, this intense ostracization turns Kya into something of a legend, since boys her age refer to her as the “Marsh Girl” and dare each other to run out to her shack in the middle of the night and bang the door. The first time this happens is several years after Kya’s father leaves, and Kya huddles in her shack and listens to the boys laugh and talk about how she failed to spell “dog” correctly on the one day she attended school. And though she feels fear when the boys approach her house, what she mainly feels is a prevailing sense of shame, as if she is less than human. In this way, readers see the harrowing effects that such ostracization and intolerance can have on a person’s sense of self, regardless of the kind of prejudice that motivates the intolerance.
As an adult, Kya continues to face classist, judgmental notions about who she is and whether or not she deserves respect. This dynamic is especially amplified by Chase Andrews’s murder trial, since the vast majority of the townspeople immediately assume she must have been the one who killed him. And while there actually is good reason for them to think this, it’s worth noting that their assumptions are just that—assumptions. Before people even learn about any of the evidence in the case, they jump to conclusions simply because Kya looms large in the town’s social consciousness as the wild “Marsh Girl.” Having forced this mysterious identity upon Kya ever since she was a child, the townspeople unquestioningly decide that she must have killed Chase, since this would align with their preconceived—but entirely uninformed—image of who she is. Thankfully, Tom Milton places this very image under scrutiny in his closing remarks while representing Kya in court, imploring the jury members to ignore hearsay and focus only on the evidence that has been presented in the trial. He points out that none of the town’s social institutions reached out to help Kya when her family abandoned her. “Instead we labeled and rejected her because we thought she was different,” he says, trying to get the jurors to see that Kya isn’t the depraved and disreputable person they’ve always thought her to be, but simply a young woman who has been unfairly excluded from society for her entire life. This argument is so powerful that the jury ultimately acquits her, allowing her to go free and finally enjoy a life in which nobody makes unfair assumptions about her. This reveals how useful it can be to remind people of their various social intolerances, inviting them to reexamine their biases in order to treat others with the compassion they deserve.
Related Themes from Other Texts Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme… Find Related Themes Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance appears in each chapter of Where the Crawdads Sing. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis. How often theme appears: chapter length: Chapter Prologue Pro Chapter 1 1.1952 Chapter 2 2.1952 Chapter 3 3.1969 Chapter 4 4.1952 Chapter 5 5.1969 Chapter 6 6.1952 Chapter 7 7.1952 Chapter 8 8.1969 Chapter 9 9.1952 Chapter 10 10.1969 Chapter 11 11.1956 Chapter 12 12.1956 Chapter 13 13.1960 Chapter 14 14.1969 Chapter 15 15.1960 Chapter 16 16.1960 Chapter 17 17.1960 Chapter 18 18.1960 Chapter 19 19.1969 Chapter 20 20.41961 Chapter 21 21.1961 Chapter 22 22.1965 Chapter 23 23.1965 Chapter 24 24.1965 Chapter 25 25.1969 Chapter 26 26.1965 Chapter 27 27.1966 Chapter 28 28.1969 Chapter 29 29.1967 Chapter 30 30.1967 Chapter 31 31.1968 Chapter 32 32.1969 Chapter 33 33.1968 Chapter 34 34.1969 Chapter 35 35.1969 Chapter 36 36.1969 Chapter 37 37.1969 Chapter 38 38.1970 Chapter 39 39.1969 Chapter 40 40.1970 Chapter 41 41.1969 Chapter 42 42.1970 Chapter 43 43.1969 Chapter 44 44.1970 Chapter 45 45.1970 Chapter 46 46.1969 Chapter 47 47.1970 Chapter 48 48.1969 Chapter 49 49.1970 Chapter 50 50.1970 Chapter 51 51.1970 Chapter 52 52. Chapter 53 53.1970 Chapter 54 54.1970 Chapter 55 55.1970 Chapter 56 56.1970 Chapter 57 57. Get the entire Where the Crawdads Sing LitChart as a printable PDF. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S. Download
Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance Quotes in Where the Crawdads Sing
Below you will find the important quotes in Where the Crawdads Sing related to the theme of Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance. Chapter 1 QuotesJust like their whiskey, the marsh dwellers bootlegged their own laws—not like those burned onto stone tablets or inscribed on documents, but deeper ones, stamped in their genes. Ancient and natural, like those hatched from hawks and doves. When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival. Quick and just. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.
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Chapter 4 Quotes When she was led into the school office, they found her name but no date of birth in the county birth records, so they put her in the second grade, even though she’d never been to school a day in her life. Anyhow, they said, the first grade was too crowded, and what difference would it make to marsh people who’d do a few months of school, maybe, then never be seen again.
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Unlock with LitCharts A+ Chapter 9 Quotes Kya had never eaten restaurant food; had never set foot inside. Her heart thumped as she brushed dried mud from her way-too-short overalls and patted down her tangled hair. As Pa opened the door, every customer paused mid bite. A few men nodded faintly at Pa; the women frowned and turned their heads. One snorted, “Well, they prob’ly can’t read the shirt and shoes required.”
Related Characters: Related Themes: Page Number and Citation: Cite this Quote Explanation and Analysis: Unlock with LitCharts A+ Chapter 13 Quotes But they backed down the steps, ran into the trees again, hooting and hollering with relief that they had survived the Marsh Girl, the Wolf Child, the girl who couldn’t spell dog. Their words and laughter carried back to her through the forest as they disappeared into the night, back to safety. She watched the relit candles, bobbing through the trees. Then sat staring into the stone-quiet darkness. Shamed.
Related Characters: Related Themes: Related Literary Devices: Page Number and Citation: Cite this Quote Explanation and Analysis: Unlock with LitCharts A+ Chapter 22 Quotes On some level he knew she behaved this way, but since the feather game, had not witnessed the raw, unpeeled core. How tormented, isolated, and strange.
[…]
Kya’s mind could easily live [in the environment of a biology lab], but she could not. Breathing hard, he stared at his decision hiding there in cord grass: Kya or everything else.
“Kya, Kya, I just can’t do this,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
After she moved away, he got into his boat and motored back toward the ocean. Swearing at the coward inside who would not tell her good-bye.
Related Characters: Related Themes: Page Number and Citation: Cite this Quote Explanation and Analysis: Unlock with LitCharts A+ Chapter 53 Quotes Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I grew up in Barkley Cove, and when I was a younger man I heard the tall tales about the Marsh Girl. Yes, let’s just get this out in the open. We called her the Marsh Girl. Many still call her that. Some people whispered that she was part wolf or the missing link between ape and man. That her eyes glowed in the dark. Yet in reality, she was only an abandoned child, a little girl surviving on her own in a swamp, hungry and cold, but we didn’t help her. Except for one of her only friends, Jumpin’, not one of our churches or community groups offered her food or clothes. Instead we labeled and rejected her because we thought she was different. But, ladies and gentlemen, did we exclude Miss Clark because she was different, or was she different because we excluded her? If we had taken her in as one of our own—I think that is what she would be today. If we had fed, clothed, and loved her, invited her into our churches and homes, we wouldn’t be prejudiced against her. And I believe she would not be sitting here today accused of a crime.
Related Characters: Related Themes: Related Literary Devices: Page Number and Citation: Cite this Quote Explanation and Analysis: Unlock with LitCharts A+ Chapter 57 Quotes The Firefly
Luring him was as easyAs flashing valentines.But like a lady fireflyThey hid a secret call to die.
A final touch,Unfinished;The last step, a trap.Down, down he falls,His eyes still holding mine Until they see another world.
I saw them change. First a question, Then an answer, Finally an end.
And love itself passingTo whatever it was before it began. A.H.
Related Characters: Related Symbols: Related Themes: Page Number and Citation: Cite this Quote Explanation and Analysis: Unlock with LitCharts A+ Previous Education, Coming of Age, and Adulthood Previous Education, Coming of Age, and Adulthood Next Quotes Next Quotes Cite This Page Close Company About Us Our Story Support Help Center Contact Us Connect Facebook Twitter Legal Terms of Service Privacy Policy Privacy Request Home About Contact Help LitCharts, a Learneo, Inc. business Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved Terms Privacy Privacy Request 
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