52 pages • 1 hour read
Patricia FordeThe List
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “#165: Earth”
Letta goes to the beach the next morning. She thinks of Benjamin’s final words when he said that birds still fly south. She thinks this means that means that something worthwhile is still out there, and maybe it includes her parents.
She sees Amelia walking. Amelia says Noa killed Leyla, and that there are worse things than death, as Ark will soon learn. Letta realizes Amelia is the one who told her Benjamin wasn’t dead. She left the message in the drop box. Amelia says that Letta is like her mother. At that moment, Letta realizes that her mother was Amelia’s other sister. The song Leyla sang was her mother’s favorite. Amelia says that Letta was born in John’s house and lived there for four years. John adored her, but when Letta’s mother betrayed them, Letta went with her. Amelia says Carver will never give up on punishing Letta, no matter what else happens.
Letta realizes that, had she continued her former path, she could have evolved into something she would have despised, without understanding that it was happening. She thought, in some ways, that she was superior to the people who had less access to language.
Werber comes to the shop with water, which makes Letta feel panicked. It means Noa’s plan is starting. When Marlo arrives, she tells him that the water supply will be contaminated soon. In the drop box, she finds a note that says, “TOMORROW AT DAWN” (304). The handwriting is identical to the note that told her Benjamin was still alive.
Chapter 22 Summary: “#496: Wordless”
Letta doesn’t tell Marlo what she learned about her mother. She remembers seeing men on the beach that day, filling barrels with seawater. The barrels go to the tower. If Letta can hide in a barrel, she can get into the water station. Marlo and Finn’s troops will be armed and mount an assault with Black Angel guns while she’s inside. Kirch Tellon will also help with recruits.
Marlo says Finn has changed after Leyla’s death: “His heart is changed somehow. He loved her very much. There are no arranged partnerships among the Creators, you know. People get together because they love one another” (308). Letta thinks this might work to their advantage because she knows that Noa loves Amelia. Later, she hears a noise outside and sees a group of Wordless in the street. They’re trying to communicate, but people ignore them. Fearfall sees her and shouts to alert the gavvers. Letta pushes him and runs. She reaches a lane where she used to play and pulls a manhole cover over herself, descending a ladder as the crowd passes overhead. When she comes back, on her way to the beach, Finn surprises her and tells her to follow him.
Noa contemplates the reports of an impending Desecrator strike. He hates that they involved Leyla in this business. He thinks Amelia will understand and forgive him if he saves Letta. He remembers her grieving for Freya after she disappeared. Now he is going to go to the tower with Werber. He recalls that the gavvers said Leyla sang as she died.
Chapter 23 Summary: “#449: Tower”
Marlo meets Letta at the beach. He found a half-empty barrel that she can hide in, and a worker will ensure that her barrel reaches the top of the tower. Colm, the water gatherer, will help with distractions if needed. Marlo says he wishes he could take her place, and then gives her a knife that she puts in her boot. Letta is cold in the barrel, which jolts violently on her trip, making her vomit. Finally, she hears the barrel rising as a rope lifts it up the tower. When she gets out onto the platform, she is alone. Nearby, she sees an engraving of a wolf’s head. As she explores, she finds and puts on a boiler suit. Then she waits for Noa under the window, holding the knife.
Elsewhere in the building, a Green Warrior gives Noa the canister. He has two weeks of clean water that will get a select few through the next stage. He will soon open the pipes that will allow the Desecrators and the people in Tintown to take their water, which will suddenly not be rationed. Then, he thinks, silence will rule the earth.
Chapter 24 Summary: “#150: Dawn”
In the night, the rebels scaled the wall. As a battle erupts between the Creators and the gavvers, Letta sees the stone wolf’s head move, which is followed by a raising platform that carries Noa and Werber. She hides behind the barrel that she rode in but comes out when she sees Noa with the canister. Letta says Noa can destroy language, but he’s not powerful enough to bring it back. He says, “There is no other way. I cut out their tongues. I instigated List. Nothing works, Letta. Language is what makes man ungovernable” (336).
Letta argues that “[w]ithout words, we will be imprisoned in the here and now forever” (338). Noa thinks that sounds fine, but Letta says that without words, they can’t express love. Otherwise, how could they express love?
Noa listens to the battle outside. He says that, unfortunately, violence is how humans express themselves. He and the Green Warriors will be the last to have language. Then, the following generations will be Wordless. Letta tells him that Amelia said her mother was the bravest of the three sisters. She mocks Noa when he says Amelia will forgive him and laughs because Amelia doesn’t love him anymore. The door below explodes and the battle enters the tower. As the fighting surrounds them, a gavver almost stabs Marlo, but Letta grabs him, and Marlo kills the man.
After a protracted fight, Letta stabs Noa and he falls off the platform to the floor, far below. She hacks into a water pipe with the knife as the others fight. Letta is shocked to see Mrs. Pepper fighting alongside them. Letta grabs the canister as the pipe bursts and water pours out. She pushes the wolf’s head and reveals a passage below. As she climbs down the ladder, Werber grabs her wrist. Then he releases her and tells her to go.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Non-List: Future”
Dawn begins over the ocean. It’s been a week since the battle. Letta managed to stop Noa from contaminating the water, but Amelia assumed power after John’s death. She is already proving to be a ruthless enemy. Letta opens Benjamin’s package and sees several maps that he left for her. Benjamin’s note says the maps and charts were her parents’ work. Marlo calls to her. Before she goes to him, she salutes her parents across the ocean.
Chapters 21-25 Analysis
Forde uses the final chapters to explore the theme of Identity and Self-Expression. People’s identities change the most in The List as a result of loss. In some ways, the characters all become their true selves because of what they sacrifice, or because of what is taken from them. For instance, when Leyla dies, Marlo and Letta see an instant change in Finn. Marlo says, “His heart is changed somehow. He loved her very much. There are no arranged partnerships among the Creators, you know. People get together because they love one another” (308). Marlo and the Creators fight for a future where love is celebrated, and partnerships are based on mutual love and desire, not arranged out of expediency.
Letta experiences two moments that set her apart from the rest of the characters. The first is when she realizes that she had unknowingly been on a path that could have turned her into someone like Noa:
She had always seen herself as special in Ark. She was the wordsmith’s apprentice, part of John Noa’s team. The ordinary people were somehow separate from her. They didn’t have as much language or the right to speak it. They didn’t have information or power. She realized now that it was that sort of thinking that had made Noa into the monster he had become (301).
The self-expression of one’s identity—as well as any coherent understanding of good and evil—starts from the self-awareness that anyone could become the monster. Letta stepped off that path, which is what makes Marlo’s romantic statement all the more meaningful, when he says, “I will never meet anyone like you again, Letta. Go safely, please” (319). Letta is unique because Marlo loves her, because she is the only wordsmith, and because she has an identity that no one else can access or change.
This level of self-awareness requires presence and vigilant self-scrutiny. Letta tells Noa, “We need words…. Why can’t you see that? […] Without them, we won’t have memory to look at the past or imagination to glimpse into the future. Without words, we will be imprisoned in the here and now forever” (338). Letta doesn’t mean that the present is not important. Rather, she thinks that ignoring the future and the past, whether due to choice, forgetfulness, or coercion, strips life of some of what is exhilarating and pleasurable. She wants a world where she can look forward to the future and relive the past with fondness.
After Noa’s death, Letta does not know exactly what to do next, but she knows that they have prevented the most immediate danger: the destruction of the water supply, and the destruction of language that would have followed. Even though she doesn’t know exactly what her next destination is, Benjamin posthumously gives her some guidance in the form of her parents’ maps. His note says, “These are the maps and charts your parents took with them. I copied them so that one day you might have them. Go safely, little one” (352). The maps symbolize not only her new life path, but also her parents’ love as the guiding force for this new direction.
Even though Noa is dead, the theme of Censorship and Control continues. As is often the case in dictatorial regimes, the death of the leader does not end the movement. Amelia quickly assumes power and becomes the formal enemy of the resistance. Even as the only remaining Deer sister, it appears that she will carry on Noa’s work. Amelia has experienced her own moment of radicalization, even though she disagreed with Noa on some issues.
As the novel concludes, Letta has stepped into the role that Benjamin imagined for her: “She was the wordsmith. That would have to come first: people needed her, and she would not let them down. But […] she knew that the boat with the silver sail had come just a little closer” (354). She does not want the job because it is entertaining, exclusive, or because it gives her access to greater power over others. Letta will be the wordsmith because she has a duty. In this way Forde nicely resolves the conflicts of this novel while setting up the plot for a future one in the series.
