50 pages • 1 hour read
Justina IrelandDread Nation
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Chapter Summaries & Analyses
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BetaPart 1, Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
As Katherine and Jane head into the university lecture, Jane notices the well-dressed white women of Baltimore, and their Attendants. She then spies Mayor Carr and his Survivalist friends, who believe that the fate of the country depends on “securing the safety of white Christian men and women” (64). The lecture begins, and the speaker—Professor Ghering—proposes a racist theory: that Indigenous and Black people have been less affected by the shambler plague because “neither the Indian nor the Negro is as highly developed as their European cousins” (67). He calls them animals, which enrages Jane and many of the crowd members.
Professor Ghering claims to have invented a vaccine that will render people of color virtually immune to the plague, and he has prepared a demonstration. His assistant Othello brings out a cage of shamblers, and according to Ghering, Othello will “willingly submit to a shambler’s bite in order to demonstrate the increased resistance of a vaccinated Negro” (71). Jane stands up in the middle of the lecture and voices her concerns, pointing out that if Othello turns into a shambler on the stage, he’ll attack the Professor first. Mayor Carr stands up and silences Jane by assuring the audience that nothing bad is going to happen. Othello sticks his hand into the shambler cage, receives a bite, and immediately begins to turn into a shambler. He attacks Professor Ghering, and the audience rushes to evacuate with the help of Miss Preston’s girls.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary
As chaos breaks out in the aftermath of the failed demonstration, Jane quickly puts down Othello, then shoots Professor Ghering before he can turn into a shambler. She realizes that the cage with the shamblers isn’t “designed to hold anything long-term” (84), and the captured shamblers break loose. Jane shoots two of them, then realizes that she has run out of bullets as she is facing down the final shambler. An Attendant fires to get the shambler’s attention, but when the shambler runs towards her, “she drops her sidearm and runs” (86), leaving Mayor Carr’s wife undefended. Jane intervenes, and as she struggles to fight off the shambler, “there’s a loud report and something cold and wet splashes on [her] face” (87). The shambler has been shot by an Indigenous man, who scowls and leaves the lecture hall. Jane meets back up with Katherine.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary
Jane and Katherine return to Miss Preston’s, where they are scolded for “wearing corsets and carrying firearms” (91) on the night of the lecture. Still, Miss Duncan points out that without them, there would have been “tragedy,” so they are assigned house duty for two weeks instead of corporal punishment (93).
One day, Jane receives a visit from Jackson, who tells her that “Lily is missing” (96). Lily, Jackson’s little sister, lives with a white family named the Spencers, who pass her off as their daughter. Jackson says that the entire family seems to have vanished without explanation, and he wants Jane to help him figure out what happened to them. Jane agrees to go to the Spencers’ house that night, and she gives Jackson a letter to send to her mother. Jane reveals that her mother hasn’t written back to her for a year and begins to wonder if everything is okay at Rose Hill. Jackson leaves, and Katherine demands to come along to find out what happened to the Spencers. Jane reluctantly agrees. Katherine asks about Jane’s beau, but Jane insists that Jackson is simply “a mistake” (100). Jane wonders if Katherine likes Jackson, and she feels a stab of jealousy at the thought of them together.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary
Jane recalls the day that she was taken away from Rose Hill when she was fourteen. Jane remembers how the truancy men took “every Negro boy and girl away to be educated” (102) when the children reached a certain age, and Jane’s mother started to hide her away when she heard the carriages coming. One day when Jane was fourteen, Aggie explained to Jane that it was time for her to go. Aggie said that Jane’s mother was being selfish, and that Jane needed to venture into the larger world. (104). Aggie gave Jane her lucky penny, instructing her to always wear it. Aggie then told Jane to find the truancy men and tell them she was ready for school.
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary
Jane and Katherine sneak out of Miss Preston’s to meet Jackson. They meet up with Jackson and begin to inspect the Spencers’ house and find no evidence that shamblers were responsible for the family’s disappearance. Jackson explains that Lily is light skinned enough to pass as a white girl, so he hid her with the Spencers in hopes that “the education officers would leave her alone” (116). Suddenly, others arrive at the house and Jane, Katherine, and Jackson hide. They listen as Miss Anderson and a few strange men discuss how the mayor wants “everything belonging to the Spencers packed up and out of here by morning” (119). Jane now believes the Spencers didn’t leave of their own accord but were taken away by the mayor’s cronies. Miss Anderson and the men leave, and Jane, Katherine, and Jackson discuss where the Spencers might have been taken. Suddenly, shamblers appear and the three must fight through a huge pack. They manage to escape unscathed, but Jackson is still insistent on finding Lily. Jane tries to remind him that they can’t “set out half-cocked on a rescue mission” (126), and Jackson decides that he’ll “handle it” himself (127). Jane and Katherine leave to return to Miss Preston’s before sunrise.
Part 1, Chapters 5-9 Analysis
In chapter 7, Jane theorizes that another madman like Professor Ghering could be bringing the undead into the city to experiment on them, thus endangering everyone in Baltimore County. This comment foreshadows the reality that is to come: that the mayor keeps shamblers inside the city limits, and that Summerland uses shamblers to generate electricity. Professor Ghering is simply the first in a long series of misguided people trying to utilize shamblers, and in the process, endangering the living. The Civil War may have been interrupted, but Ireland shows that even during a zombie apocalypse, humans can’t stop fighting to solve their problems.
More details of Jane and Jackson’s checkered past comes to light in these chapters. Jane reveals that Jackson was the boy she once kissed in the moonlight, and that he gave her presents and did favors for her. The two were obviously very close, and despite Jane’s frequent protestations and threats to do harm to Jackson, she once harbored warm feelings for him. Those feelings still linger, and the reader can see how deeply Jane cares for Jackson when she agrees to come to the Spencers’ house in the dead of night, seeks to comfort him when he is distraught, and recalls the hurt she felt when he broke up with her. Jane’s anger towards Jackson is a direct result of the pain he put her through, and although she tries to convince herself and Katherine that she doesn’t care about Jackson, her actions say otherwise.
