Where The Crawdads Sing Study Guide | Literature Guide - LitCharts

Where the Crawdads Sing Introduction + Context Plot Summary Detailed Summary & Analysis Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Themes All Themes Survival, Necessity, and Violence Independence vs. Human Connection Education, Coming of Age, and Adulthood Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance Quotes Characters All Characters Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark) Tate Chase Andrews Ma (Kya’s Mother) Jodie Pa (Kya’s Father) Jumpin’ Mabel Sheriff Ed Jackson Miss Pansy Price Mrs. Singletary Amanda Hamilton Mrs. Culpepper Hal Miller Scupper Robert Foster Rodney Horn Judge Sims Sunday Justice Dr. Steward Cone Tim O’Neal Tom Milton Symbols All Symbols Seagulls The Shell Necklace Fireflies Literary Devices All Literary Devices Alliteration Allusions Dialect Flashbacks Foil Foreshadowing Frame Story Genre Hyperbole Idioms Imagery Irony Metaphors Mood Motifs Pathos Personification Setting Similes Situational Irony Style Tone Download PDF Download Teacher Edition Sign In Sign up for A+ AI Tools

• Ask LitCharts AI
• Discussion Question Generator
• Essay Prompt Generator
• Quiz Question Generator

Guides

• Literature Guides
• Poetry Guides
• Shakespeare Translations
• Literary Terms

Sign In Sign up for A+ Sign up Introduction Intro Plot Summary Plot Summary & Analysis

• Prologue
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• Chapter 28
• Chapter 29
• Chapter 30
• Chapter 31
• Chapter 32
• Chapter 33
• Chapter 34
• Chapter 35
• Chapter 36
• Chapter 37
• Chapter 38
• Chapter 39
• Chapter 40
• Chapter 41
• Chapter 42
• Chapter 43
• Chapter 44
• Chapter 45
• Chapter 46
• Chapter 47
• Chapter 48
• Chapter 49
• Chapter 50
• Chapter 51
• Chapter 52
• Chapter 53
• Chapter 54
• Chapter 55
• Chapter 56
• Chapter 57

Themes

• All Themes
• Survival, Necessity, and Violence
• Independence vs. Human Connection
• Education, Coming of Age, and Adulthood
• Prejudice, Intolerance, and Acceptance

Quotes Characters

• All Characters
• Kya (Catherine Danielle Clark)
• Tate
• Chase Andrews
• Ma (Kya’s Mother)
• Jodie
• Pa (Kya’s Father)
• Jumpin’
• Mabel
• Sheriff Ed Jackson
• Miss Pansy Price
• Mrs. Singletary
• Amanda Hamilton
• Mrs. Culpepper
• Hal Miller
• Scupper
• Robert Foster
• Rodney Horn
• Judge Sims
• Sunday Justice
• Dr. Steward Cone
• Tim O’Neal
• Tom Milton

Symbols

• All Symbols
• Seagulls
• The Shell Necklace
• Fireflies

Lit Devices

• All Literary Devices
• Alliteration
• Allusions
• Dialect
• Flashbacks
• Foil
• Foreshadowing
• Frame Story
• Genre
• Hyperbole
• Idioms
• Imagery
• Irony
• Metaphors
• Mood
• Motifs
• Pathos
• Personification
• Setting
• Similes
• Situational Irony
• Style
• Tone

Theme Wheel Theme Viz Download this Chart (PDF) Download the Teacher Edition Download this Chart (PDF)

Where the Crawdads Sing Study Guide

Next Summary

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Delia Owens's Where the Crawdads Sing. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Introduction

A concise biography of Delia Owens plus historical and literary context for Where the Crawdads Sing.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Plot Summary

A quick-reference summary: Where the Crawdads Sing on a single page.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Detailed Summary & Analysis

In-depth summary and analysis of every chapter of Where the Crawdads Sing. Visual theme-tracking, too.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Themes

Explanations, analysis, and visualizations of Where the Crawdads Sing's themes.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Quotes

Where the Crawdads Sing's important quotes, sortable by theme, character, or chapter.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Characters

Description, analysis, and timelines for Where the Crawdads Sing's characters.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Symbols

Explanations of Where the Crawdads Sing's symbols, and tracking of where they appear.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Literary Devices

Where the Crawdads Sing's key literary devices explained and sortable by chapter.

Where the Crawdads Sing: Theme Wheel

An interactive data visualization of Where the Crawdads Sing's plot and themes.

Brief Biography of Delia Owens

Born in 1949, Delia Owens grew up in Georgia, where she developed a strong love of nature. As a child, she rode horses and explored the woods, encouraged by her mother to spend time in the wilderness. During this time, Owens developed an early passion for writing, even winning a writing contest in the sixth grade and deciding that she would someday be a professional writer. However, when she went to college at the University of Georgia, she studied zoology instead of English, eventually going on to complete a doctorate in Animal Behavior from the University of California, Davis. After this, Owens and her then-husband moved to Africa, where they worked as wildlife scientists in Botswana. For seven years, they lived in an extremely remote area and studied packs of lions and hyenas, eventually co-writing Cry of the Kalahari, which was a bestseller. After living in Botswana, Owens and her husband moved to Zambia, where they studied elephants and founded a social work program that helped locals survive economically without having to become animal poachers. Over the years, Owens has published her writing about wildlife in a number of scientific journals and has won awards for her research and conservation efforts. Where the Crawdads Sing is her first work of fiction. She currently lives in Idaho. 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

Historical Context of Where the Crawdads Sing

As explained in the novel itself, Where the Crawdads Sing takes place in the marshlands of North Carolina, which have an interesting history in terms of settlement and habitation. In the 1500s, the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed the eastern coastline of the United States and claimed the area in the vicinity of present-day North Carolina for France. However, Francis I—the king of France at the time—was unhappy with the area because he was primarily interested in finding gold and silver, along with discovering a passage to the Pacific Ocean through the continent. Shortly thereafter, Spanish explorers tried to settle in the region but ultimately failed. These kinds of attempts continued, though explorers were generally unenthused when they saw the marshlands, which they thought had very little value and wouldn’t make for good settlements. This aversion to the area continued throughout the ensuing centuries, which is why the area in which Kya lives in Where the Crawdads Sing is so sparsely populated. Furthermore, the stigma that Kya experiences because she lives in the marshlands comes from the fact that the region was largely inhabited by former slaves, indentured servants, criminals, and other people who had been ostracized by society.

Other Books Related to Where the Crawdads Sing

Because of its engagement with the theme of independence and self-sufficiency, Where the Crawdads Sing is similar to another work of contemporary fiction, Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. Like Where the Crawdads Sing, Before We Were Yours examines what happens when children are abandoned by their parents. Furthermore, it’s worth mentioning Cry of the Kalahari, The Eye of the Elephant, and Secrets of the Savanna, three nonfiction books that Owens co-wrote with her former husband about her experiences as a zoologist. Given that Where the Crawdads Sing engages so deeply with the natural world and animal kingdom, these works are relevant because they demonstrate Owens’s vast knowledge of such matters. In addition, this novel has drawn comparisons to the works of Barbara Kingsolver, whose novels like The Bean Trees and Flight Behavior also closely consider nature and wildlife. Key Facts about Where the Crawdads Sing

• Full Title: Where the Crawdads Sing
• When Published: August 14, 2018
• Literary Period: Contemporary
• Genre: Coming of Age Novel (Bildungsroman)
• Setting: The coastal marshes of North Carolina
• Climax: After Kya’s death, Tate discovers that Kya murdered Chase and got away with it.
• Antagonist: Chase Andrews

Extra Credit for Where the Crawdads Sing

Motherly Advice. When Delia Owens was a child, her mother used to encourage her to spend as much time as possible exploring nature, urging her to go way out to “where the crawdads sing”—something that Kya’s mother also tells her in the novel.

Off-Grid. Owens is familiar with the kind of isolation that Kya experiences in Where the Crawdads Sing. When she was working in Africa with her ex-husband, she lived in an area in the wilderness that was as big as Ireland and in which there weren’t any other humans except for several nomadic tribes who roamed the region.

Next Summary Next Summary 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 Save time. Stress less. Sign up!

• AI Tools for on-demand study help and teaching prep.
• Quote explanations, with page numbers, for over 49,991 quotes.
• PDF downloads of all 2,243 LitCharts guides.
• Expert analysis to take your reading to the next level.
• Advanced search to help you find exactly what you're looking for.
• Quizzes, saving guides, requests, plus so much more.

• Expert analysis to take your reading to the next level.
• Advanced search to help you find exactly what you're looking for.
• Quizzes, saving guides, requests, plus so much more.

Close Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account You'll also get updates on new titles we publish and the ability to save highlights and notes.

or

Already have an account? Sign in Continue Complete your free account to request a guide Already have an account? Sign in Create Account Get your answer with a free account You’ll also get tons of other helpful features, including free quizzes and saving guides.

or

Already have an account? Sign in Continue Last step: complete your free account Already have an account? Sign in Create Account Creating notes and highlights requires a free LitCharts account. You'll be able to access your notes and highlights, make requests, and get updates on new titles.

or

Already have an account? Sign in Continue Complete your free account to access notes and highlights Already have an account? Sign in Create Account Saving guides requires a free LitCharts account Easily access your saved guides anytime.

or

Already have an account? Sign in Continue Complete your free account to save guides Already have an account? Sign in Create Account