The Borrowers

“They thought humans were just there to do their dirty work, great slaves put there for them to use.”

 In this quotation, Arrietty tells the boy her views on why humans exist at all: to make and provide the various things that ensure the Borrowers’ survival. Because Mrs. May repeats this line to Kate verbatim, it suggests that the boy initially repeated Arrietty’s belief to his sister, thus indicating that even he had a somewhat negative view of the Borrowers’ lifestyle, which could, by human standards, be considered one revolving around theft. (The very euphemism of “borrowers” also shows the tiny family’s blithe approach to appropriating supplies that are not their own.)

“It was a charming old fireplace, made by Arrietty’s grandfather, with a cogwheel from the stables, part of an old cider press.”

The book establishes the setting of the Clock home by describing the furnishings and decor, and by outlining what human items were used to build each thing, Norton creates a strong sense of the borrowers’ innate ingenuity at repurposing common human items. With the mention of Arrietty’s grandfather, this line also reveals that the Clock family has lived in the same house for at least two generations.

“Your mother’s a wicked woman, Arrietty. Wicked and selfish, that’s what she is!”

 In this quotation, Homily rebukes herself for her vanity in the opening scenes of the Clock family, when she worries that Pod has been killed getting a teacup from the schoolroom. She remembers her relatives who lived with much less than she currently has and wishes that she had not grown accustomed to such a luxurious lifestyle. Her worries also serve to underscore the dangers that lurk behind even the most inconsequential of excursions beyond the boundaries of the hidden house.

“Pod looked at her blankly. ‘I been “seen,”’ he said.”

 Being “seen” is thought to be one of the worst things that can happen to a Borrower, for their entire lives are organized around remaining hidden from the human population, and executing borrowing missions with stealth and secrecy is also a mark of skill and pride within the Borrower culture. When Pod’s brother was seen many years before, he ultimately had to leave the house, which the Borrowers refer to as “emigrating” and regard as one of the most awful fates to befall a Borrower family: the loss of their home, their community, and the associated comforts and sense of status.

“They tried to make her believe that there wasn’t nothing but under the floor. They never told her about Mrs. Driver or Crampfurl. Least of all about cats.”

 Pod and Homily tell Arrietty about the fate of her cousin Eggletina, who mysteriously disappeared a few years prior to the events of the book. Pod and Homily look down on their relatives for trying to delude their child and keep the realities of the world from her, for when Eggletina ultimately realized they were not telling the truth, she left the Clock home to explore on her own and met an unknown end. Thus, the Clocks’ tale serves not as a sign of relaxing their fears of the world; instead, the story is designed to reinforce the reasoning behind such fears and impress on their reckless daughter the importance of being cautious in a human world.

“Sitting here in this chair, I can tell you by heart every blessed thing that’s in that drawing room.”

The drawing room is introduced as somewhat off-limits to the Borrowers since everything there will at some point be missed by the humans. Later in the book, this rule will be broken, which will ultimately lead to the Clock family having to leave the house.

“Times have changed in the whole house. Pickings aren’t what they were.”

The human family in the house has grown older and smaller during Pod and Arrietty’s lifetime. Previously, there were many people living there and constant visitors, and a large group of Borrowers also lived and thrived in the house. At the time of the book, there are only the three Clocks and four humans: Sophy, Mrs. Driver, Crampfurl, and the boy. This depletion in the number of human residents is designed to reflect hard times in the human world, a fact that renders Norton’s novel quite relevant to the readers of the time, who were dealing with the chaos and aftermath of the second World War.

“Suppose anything happened to you or me, where would Arrietty be—if she hadn’t learned to borrow?”

Although Pod and Homily do not think that borrowing is an appropriate job for a girl, after Pod is “seen,” Homily realizes that they have to teach her the art and skill of borrowing, for the sake of her own safety and survival in the long run. Along with satisfying Arrietty’s natural curiosity, Homily hopes that teaching her to borrow will allow her to survive alone once they are gone.

“Swiftly he ran—as a mouse runs or a blown dry leaf—and suddenly she saw him as ‘small.’”

This quote emphasizes the relative nature of one’s perspective on the world, for Arrietty believes herself to be normal-sized, as she has never seen anything outside the Borrower world. Her first time outside the Clock home, she begins to realize just how much bigger human beings are and why the Borrowers constantly have to hide from them. Her perception of the “giant” boy as “small” thus reflects her own adapting worldview as she is exposed to perspectives other than her own.

“An ant came hurrying in a busy zigzag. She danced in front of it to tease it and put out her foot. It stared at her, nonplused, waving its antennae; then pettishly, as though put out, it swerved away.”

Arrietty attempts to play with insects the first time she goes into the yard; she is desperate to have friends. Although the ant is somewhat anthropomorphized and seems to react to her presence, she ultimately realizes that it has its own life and is not interested in being her companion or otherwise communicating with her.

“It was an eye. Or it looked like an eye. Clear and bright like the color of the sky.”

The book often uses metaphors to describe human things from Arrietty’s viewpoint. When she first sees the boy, he is extremely close, so she can only see his gigantic eye. At first, she is not even sure what it is, but then she sees the giant lashes as the eye blinks, and as her perspective resolves to reflect the reality of the situation, her resultant alarm becomes all the more reasonable.

“Surely you don’t think there are many people in the world your size?”

 Arrietty cannot believe that Borrowers are less common than human beings. She has only ever seen one human and believes them to be merely a resource that exists for the sake of the Borrowers. When the boy tells her that human beings are everywhere, she becomes worried that Borrowers are dying out. This quotation thus represents a further shift in her perspective: one bordering almost on an existential crisis as she is forced to consider the possible end of her own kind.

“We’re part of the house. You might as well say that the fire grate steals the coal from the coal scuttle.”

Arrietty is offended when the boy suggests that borrowing is actually stealing. To her, stealing is when one borrower takes something from another without permission, but the act of borrowing supplies is viewed a natural pursuit in the larger “ecosystem” of the house. Arrietty thus sees the actions of the borrowers as no different than those of the birds and squirrels who forage for food in the woods and fields beyond the house.

“How familiar the room seemed, and homely, but, suddenly, somehow strange.”

When she leaves the Clock house for the first time, Arrietty’s perspective of the world changes dramatically, and she suddenly acknowledges the myriad ways in which her own belongings are simply repurposed human items. Her horizons have been irrevocably broadened, and she takes her “large” viewpoint back with her into the smallness of her own family home. In this way, Norton draws a parallel to the very human experience of traveling and returning home to view everything differently. Nothing at home has changed; only the traveler has.

“It’s my belief he’s got a ferret.”

This quotation reflects the various speculations that Crampfurl and Mrs. Driver share when they begin to notice the boy doing strange things in the house. At first, they decide that he has a pet that has gotten lost since he keeps looking down badger holes. They begin to watch him more closely, as they are naturally suspicious of young children, and this trend foreshadows their disastrous interference at the climax of the novel.

“She did not mind the semi-darkness, she lived in darkness, she was home in it and, at a time like this, it made her feel safe.”

 Arrietty does not appear to be nervous when she sneaks away from home to visit the boy. She knows that she will be in trouble if her father catches her, but she finds it easy to climb the soft carpet of the stairs and run through the shadows of the hallway trying to find the night nursery. Reveling in her relative freedom, she abandons all caution and indulges in the adventure all the more for its forbidden nature.

“There was no time to hide: it was Pod, borrowing bag in one hand and pin in the other.”

 Arrietty is too engrossed in reading the letter from Hendreary to notice that her father has caught her in the night nursery. He appears very small in the huge doorway, and with a guilty start of fear that every child has no doubt felt upon being discovered in the midst of wrongdoing, Arrietty immediately realizes the full extent of her transgression.

“‘They are frightened,’ Arrietty realized, ‘They are not angry at all—they are very, very frightened.’”

 As they walk home in silence, Arrietty fears the consequences of her father’s anger, but when she realizes that her parents are in fact terrified, the true significance of her transgression is brought home all the more forcefully for her, for Pod and Homily are not concerned about punishing their daughter; instead, they are worried that the family itself is doomed, their safety in the house eternally compromised. Arrietty tries to appease them by telling the entire story of meeting the boy, but her tale only makes it worse as they realize just how much she has revealed to the boy about both her family and Hendreary’s.

“Very still she lay in her soft little bed with her familiar belongings about her: her postage stamp view of Rio harbor; her silver pig off of a charm bracelet; her turquoise ring which sometimes, for fun, she would wear as a crown, and, dearest of all, her floating ladies with the golden trumpets, tooting above their peaceful town.”

 Arrietty loves her bedroom, full of things that have been familiar to her for her entire life. As she lies in bed after sneaking out to visit the boy, she begins to realize that she should never have been so careless and that she may have cost her family their entire way of life.

“The began a curious phase int their lives: borrowings beyond all dreams of borrowing - a golden age.”

Instead of an enemy, the boy becomes a friend, changing the Clocks’ view of human beings to some degree as he brings them whatever they want and spends quality time reading together with Arrietty. This dynamic, while positive in and of itself, plays a significant role in contributing to the family’s downfall, as they begin to become more careless about borrowing things that are sure to be missed.

“There was a kind of menace in her silence, a hidden something which no one could ignore.”

 Mrs. Driver regularly steals supplies from the household herself, so when she starts to notice things missing, she believes it will result in her own wrongdoing being discovered. This motivates her to begin suspecting those around her of theft, but ironically, she cannot accuse them directly since she knows she herself is guilty of other thefts.

“The ‘house’ itself was in shambles—partitions fallen, earth floors revealed (where Pod had dug down to give greater height to the rooms), match-sticks, an old cogwheel, onion skins, scattered bottle tops.”

This passage shows the destruction that humans can impart on Borrower families, destroying their years of hard, industrious labor in mere moments of violent pique. The Clock home took generations to build, and the occupants treasure everything in it—not a single thing their house contains would ever be dismissed as “rubbish” or thrown away, as Mrs. Driver does in just a few minutes’ time.

“She’ll change her tune, like enough, when I take them up afterwards, laid out in sizes, on a clean piece of newspaper.”

No one believes Mrs. Driver when she claims to have seen a group of tiny humans. No stranger to exaggeration, she declares that she saw hundreds of them all at once and states her intentions to kill them all, not necessarily to get rid of the population, but to clear her name to the other adults and prove that she is not delusional. Thus, in her own way, Mrs. Driver is motivated by a strong sense of status and public “face,” just like the Clocks, who ultimately risk discovery with their reckless acquisition of luxurious items for the mere sake of status and comfort.