The Knife of Never Letting Go

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2008

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Masculinity as a Product of Social Norms

At the start of the novel, Todd thinks, “I won’t officially become a man for thirty more days” (4), as if coming of age and passing into adulthood is nothing but a birthday. Viola asks him, “Why do you become a man here at thirteen?” (228). Todd says that he doesn’t know, but he thinks it is based on scripture.

Manhood is a difficult concept to define in The Knife of Never Letting Go. The definition changes depending on perspective: The sacrificial ritual of Prentisstown insists that a boy becomes a man when he kills another man.

However, Todd learns that being a man from Prentisstown is a crime punishable by law in other settlements, as the men there are likely murderers. Being a man from Prentisstown is not something anyone outside the town would aspire to, and therefore, their definition of manhood is decidedly different.

Todd personally defines manhood as protecting those you love, though he views his inability to kill as proof that he is a coward and a child. His inability to see the benefit of mercy and suppression of violence suggests that he has been subconsciously indoctrinated by the culture of Prentisstown, even though he doesn’t consciously ascribe to it.

Todd’s statement in the final fight with Aaron, “I already am a man” (454) shows his development as a character and his understanding of manhood—a change which Viola is largely responsible for. Viola offers Todd a new perspective: he’s likely 14 according to the Old World, violence isn’t a part of the path to manhood, and she recognizes his reluctance to commit murder as a positive aspect of his personality. Further, Todd knows that he is now willing to do whatever it takes to protect Viola, reach Haven, and avenge Manchee. Todd’s later statement that everyone falls—falling is what Aaron calls the passage to manhood—is a sign that he knows he has left childhood behind.

The treatment of masculinity and manhood in the novel mirrors some of the contemporary discussions concerning toxic masculinity. As in contemporary western culture, Todd is born into an idea of manhood that opposes his morality and his natural sensibilities. Likewise, contemporary toxic masculinity is characterized by aggression and the ability to stifle one’s feelings. Ness’s overexaggerating of a social issue in order to create a commentary on it is typical of the science fiction genre and appears in landmark dystopian novels like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Masculine Vulnerability and the Eradication of the “Other”

Ness’s novel is a thought experiment that considers what would happen if men could read each other’s minds. Being that the novel is so interested in manhood and masculinity and the social norms that shape them, it follows that Ness is playing with the contemporary notion that men are less willing to express their feelings and thoughts. Here, Ness has created a world where men can’t help but share their thoughts, and he describes the consequences of such a place. For Prentisstown, at least, this change has resulted in hyper-toxic masculinity that relies on murder to establish dominance and uphold the violent culture.

The men of Prentisstown kill the women because they make them feel vulnerable—they can’t trust the women who know all of their secrets yet do not reveal their own. A man’s thoughts lay his insecurities, inadequacies, and fears bare. The men also blame the Spackle for the Noise germ, suggesting that blame also plays a major role in their culture. Here, we see blaming the “other,” a concept that historically resulted in genocide (as with the Jewish peoples in Nazi Germany), and plays out similarly in Prentisstown, with all Prentisstown women murdered and the Spackle being summarily driven out or killed.

It is not the ability to hear each other’s thoughts that leads to these murders, it’s rather the frustration caused by their own vulnerability. This, too, mirrors Nazi Germany, as many historians believe the poverty and national vulnerability that the Germans found themselves following the loss of WWI contributed to their attitudes of blame against the Jewish community. Mayor Prentiss unjustly uses blame to unite the men against a common—albeit innocent—enemy, just as Hitler used it to unite the Germans against the Jewish community.

Following the depletion of the “other,” Prentisstown functions as a complete surveillance state. The alternative for the men is to hide their thoughts from each other with an aggressive barrage of deceptive, distracting thinking; when thoughts are tailored to hide the truth, those thoughts are lies.

When Todd chases what he calls the hole in the Noise, he is distraught at the thought that he might lose it: “I start to feel really torn up, like I’m about to lose the most valuable thing ever, like there it is, a death” (16). Even though he doesn’t understand what is happening, the silence gives such relief that losing it terrifies him. This moment suggests that the people in Prentisstown feel oppressed by their own Noise and the falsehoods it seems to impress on them at all times.

Late in the novel, Todd realizes that he will miss the times when it was just he and Viola. He enjoys that there are things to discover about her that he will never learn without her revealing them voluntarily. He doesn’t have access to her thoughts, which makes her mysterious. Todd, as the protagonist and representative of “good” in the novel, no longer feels vulnerable with Viola and instead enjoys what makes her different from himself. Ness suggests that it is morally right to be accepting of others and their differences.

Imposing Order on Chaos

Todd says that without a filter, a man is “chaos walking” (42). A person’s thoughts are often disorderly, surreal, and erratic, without logical sequences. The men in Prentisstown essentially have a megaphone broadcasting their inner chaos for everyone else to hear. Noise reveals that no one in Prentisstown has a calm inner life.

Because thoughts are chaotic, Mayor Prentiss sees the taming of the Noise as a divine virtue and duty. His men train themselves to think in specific phrases, attempting to tame something that may be untamable.

Settling New World is another ambitious attempt to impose a new form of order onto a system that resists it. The colonials kill the Spackles, an analogy to any imperial force that oppresses the native population of a territory it wishes to possess, encouraging comparisons to historical colonialism in our world.

Visits to other settlements suggest that, while there is undoubtedly some sadness and upset in the Noise of these culturally different areas, they are mostly in harmony with their thoughts. Ness likely includes this point because the Prentisstown men are constantly trying to hide their thoughts to try to pry some privacy out of the tyrannical society. Ness underlines that the thoughts of the men aren’t the issue, it’s the need to hide their thoughts that causes the chaos.