49 pages • 1-hour read
The Intruder
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.
Chapters 26-38Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, substance use, graphic violence, and death.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Now: Casey”
The narrative returns to Casey’s present timeline. Casey loses power at the cabin. She reassures Eleanor, and the two light candles together. Casey is surprised Eleanor already has a lighter. Casey offers Eleanor her bed. After she retreats to the bedroom, Casey considers digging through Eleanor’s backpack while lighting a fire. Her mind wanders to her late father, wondering if he’d be proud of her. She assumes Eleanor is asleep and opens her bag, shocked by the piece of paper she finds inside.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back to Ella’s timeline. Ella searches the fridge for something to eat, but it’s filled with expired or rotting food. Desiree appears and announces she’s going on another date. Ella begs Desiree to tell her about her biological father, but Desiree again dismisses the subject by insisting her dad was a bad man. She then forces Ella back into the closet. Alone in the dark, she wishes her father knew where she was so he could rescue her.
Chapter 28 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. After school the next day, Ella and Anton meet up to work on their project. Ella is surprised when Anton announces he’s quit smoking. She asks about what actually happened between him and Devin. Ella wonders what would make her attack someone the way Devin attacked him.
At the apartment, they work and chat. Ella offers Anton help when she notices he’s struggling with his schoolwork. Brad interrupts. Anton gets annoyed and locks him in the closet. A distraught Ella begs Anton to free Brad. Anton is surprised by Ella’s response; he assures her that they’re only playing and Brad can free himself. Brad pops out of the closet. Anton taught him to pick locks. Ella asks Anton to teach her, too.
Chapter 29 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. Anton teaches Ella how to pick locks. They then close themselves in the closet so she can try for real. Ella panics, imagining the smell of the rotten peaches. Anton encourages her by reminding her that she is strong. Ella manages to get the door open.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Now: Casey”
The narrative returns to Casey’s present timeline. Casey studies the map Eleanor has drawn on the paper. It details directions to Casey’s cabin. Eleanor appears, startling Casey. She wants a toothbrush and is worried the tree will fall on the cabin. Casey assures her they’ll be fine. When Eleanor goes to the bathroom, Casey sits alone, panicking about why Eleanor is here.
Chapter 31 Summary
The narrative continues in Casey’s present timeline. While Eleanor is in the bathroom, Casey unzips her bag and discovers a bloody washcloth and a notebook. Eleanor reappears just as she’s about to open it. She needs a Band-Aid for a cut. Casey is worried about the abrasions she discovers on Eleanor’s neck and the cigarette burns and bruises on her arms. She wishes she could call child protective services but tries remaining calm and tending the injuries. In the meantime, Eleanor notes one of Casey’s dad’s paintings on the wall. Casey says she misses her dad, and Eleanor reveals her dad abandoned her. Casey tries comforting her, but Eleanor shuts down and pushes past her to bed.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back to Ella’s timeline. Back at home, Ella encounters a terrible stench. She searches the house for its source, discovering it’s coming from Desiree’s room. She enters despite her mom’s rule to never go into her space. There she finds a pile of rotting pumpkins Desiree bought some time ago. While bagging up the pumpkins, she notices an envelope with her name on it. Inside is her birth certificate, which includes her father’s name.
Chapter 33 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. John Carter is listed as Ella’s father on the certificate. She remembers that Brittany’s last name is Carter and her parents are Vanessa and John. She is trying to make sense of the mystery when Desiree returns home. She accuses Ella of intruding on her room and dumps the bags of rotting pumpkin onto her bedroom floor. A distraught Ella wishes she had Brittany’s life.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Now: Casey”
The narrative returns to Casey’s present timeline. After Eleanor falls asleep, Casey starts to open her notebook in a panic. She can’t believe this is her life and blames the incident with her student Karis Harrel at school for where she is now. Eleanor resurfaces. She can’t sleep and wants Casey to tell her a scary story. Casey invents a tale about a date gone wrong. Dissatisfied, Eleanor spins her own yarn. The story’s details resemble Casey and Eleanor’s story, except it ends with Eleanor dismembering Casey and leaving her in the cabin to die. Eleanor explains that her story is better because its ending could happen to Casey.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back to Ella’s timeline. After working on their project, Ella tells Anton about discovering her birth certificate. Anton is skeptical and wonders why Ella would want to be related to Brittany anyway. He then gives Ella a silver chain; she plans to hide it under her clothes so Desiree doesn’t confiscate it. She hopes he’ll still be her friend after she joins the Carter family.
Chapter 36 Summary
The narrative continues in Ella’s past timeline. Ella obsessively studies Brittany in the lunch line. Realizing they both have blue eyes, she decides John Carter must be her dad. She gets distracted, realizing she doesn’t have money for lunch. Brittany and her friends laugh at Ella as she retreats to Anton’s table. He offers her his extra sandwich and invites her to the movies after school. After accepting his food, she declines his invitation—afraid of owing him too much.
Chapter 37 Summary: “Now: Casey”
The narrative returns to Casey’s present timeline. A restless Casey opens Eleanor’s notebook despite her fears. Inside, she finds a series of horrifying sketches. Each one depicts a woman in various states of bondage or mutilation. She realizes the drawings are of her. Terrified, she decides to get her gun but realizes she returned it to the drawer in her room “[w]here Eleanor is sleeping” (161).
Chapter 38 Summary
Casey chastises herself for leaving the gun in the room with Eleanor. She creeps into the room, hoping that Eleanor is asleep and she can retrieve the weapon. However, Eleanor is sitting on the bed with the gun in her hands, and it is pointed at Casey’s head.
Chapters 26-38 Analysis
Increased images of violence and danger throughout Chapters 26 through 38 augment the narrative tension and mystery. Now halfway through the novel, the stakes of Casey’s story increase the longer she is in Eleanor’s company. Eleanor’s presence unsettles Casey more than the storm. The images of Eleanor’s bloody backpack and cloth, her knife, notebook and drawings, and the allusions to murder and violence in Eleanor’s scary bedtime story unsettle the narrative atmosphere and heighten Casey’s fear. She is already in an isolated locale, which becomes increasingly unsafe as the night wears on—the power goes out and the tree out front threatens to fall. The images she discovers of herself in the notebook then turn Eleanor into a more direct and impending threat to Casey. Eleanor no longer appears to be an innocent child, but a motivated killer with a plan.
Ella’s intermittent chapters complicate Eleanor’s character arc. Because Ella’s name is similar to Eleanor’s—and Eleanor tells Casey “[n]obody calls me by my full name” (73)—the narrative implies that Ella and Eleanor are the same character. The episodes from Ella’s storyline thus offer context clues to Eleanor’s background and further the novel’s theme of Navigating the Psychological Effects of Trauma. The image of Ella getting upset when Anton teaches her to pick a lock captures the intensity of the abuse Ella has suffered:
I’ve got this bad feeling in my chest when Anton and I get into the closet. Same as in my hall closet, there’s a pull string to turn on the light, and just like in my closet, it’s still really dark. But at least it isn’t full of junk. It’s mostly clothing and shoes. But […] [t]he second I hear the lock turn, my stomach drops. A cold sweat breaks out on my palms (122-23).
Ella intellectually knows she is safe in Anton’s closet. She is with a friend and is not in the same captivity Desiree often subjects her to at home. Even still, she feels as if she is in danger because of the abuse she has suffered.
Her physiological response to the closet captures her psychological distress. This scene offers insight into Eleanor’s character in the narrative present by proxy; Eleanor is afraid to be alone in Casey’s room, bothered by the storm and creaking tree, and unable to fall asleep. Her response to these environmental threats echoes Ella’s fear responses in the narrative past—implying that Eleanor’s tumultuous home life has harmed her mentally and emotionally.
The images in Eleanor’s notebook and from her bedtime story foreshadow danger and underscore the novel’s theme of The Relationship Between Fear and Trust. Eleanor may be a traumatized child, but her traumatic past appears to have incited her violent tendencies. In Ella’s chapters, references to Desiree’s death and Devin’s attack inform this dynamic. “When I do bad things,” Ella thinks in Chapter 28, “it’s always on purpose. If I mess with somebody, it would only be because they deserve it” (117). The novel is reinforcing psychological thriller tropes, wherein a “hardened killer” or criminal with psychopathy is capable of hurting others because they have been hurt by others in the past. This appears true of Eleanor. Because she can’t trust anyone, she is compelled to exhibit violence against anyone who poses a threat to her. She may be plotting Casey’s death because she regards Casey as an obstacle to her safety.
Unlock all 49 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs