59 pages • 1-hour read
The Last House on the Street
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Themes
Ignorance of Racial Disparity
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism, racist violence, suicide, and miscarriage.
Eleanor “Ellie” Hockley is the epitome of the rural white girl who grows up in an insular environment, only to discover belatedly that the world—even the world within the confines of her home county—is not what it seems. Encouraged by her enlightened Aunt Carol, Ellie’s perception of racial inequality is at first an intellectual pursuit, fueled by unspoken guilt over her role in the death of Mattie, the daughter of her Black housekeeper. Then, she finds Rev. Greg Filburn and insists that she wants to volunteer to register voters. The novel traces Ellie’s journey from relative ignorance of racial disparity to first-hand knowledge. It suggests that ignorance perpetuates disparity and that educating oneself and others is a difficult but necessary pursuit.
Chamberlain portrays Ellie becoming less ignorant through visceral descriptions of racial disparity. While the training is a moving experience, her true awakening comes when she moves into the field and lives among Black citizens. Ellie has no idea of the degree of poverty that many families endure within Derby County. She has no idea of the fear faced by many Black families, sharecroppers, and subsistence workers who may lose their incomes and homes if they are brash enough to register to vote. She soon realizes that police officers at freedom protests are not there to protect the rights of Black citizens but to arrest any Black person who fights back against the arbitrary attacks of citizens. This awareness fuels Ellie’s determination to help attain equal rights for Black people. Through the narrative, her responses to the protests of those against her volunteering become pointed, pertinent, and focused. This development suggests that decreased ignorance causes increased commitment to fight for equality, emphasizing the necessity of combatting ignorance.
Resistance to SCOPE and Ellie’s work in it are typical of the responses and attitudes of the white residents of Round Hill to the racial disparity that exists all around them. Their ignorance is willful. Lurking in the background of the white citizenry is a large, powerful, organized group of Klansmen. Ellie’s father, godfather—who is the town sheriff—best friend’s husband, and many other seemingly upstanding Round Hill citizens are members of the Klan. The existence of the Klan implies an underlying awareness of the downtrodden circumstances of the Black population and a desire among white citizens to perpetuate the existing social order. As voiced in the narrative, white people have the power and have no intention of relinquishing or sharing it. In order to maintain a shared willful ignorance to the vast racial disparity all about them, certain white citizens stoke fear in other citizens and resort to violence against Black people to maintain the blissful harmony of ignorance. This emphasizes the novel’s message that resisting ignorance and breaking down the structures that maintain it is necessary.
The Drastic Consequences of Personal Choices
As Kayla prepares to move into the beautiful, carefully designed new home on Shadow Ridge Lane, she suddenly realizes the magnitude of what it will mean to live alone with her three-year-old on a dark street surrounded by an impenetrable forest with no light. She has made a decision and now must face the consequences. For Kayla, however, the consequences of this choice, fearful as they are at the moment, are inconsequential compared to the results of the decisions Ellie must face throughout the narrative. Chamberlain is unsparing in pointing out that the decisions human beings make change the world about them, often in negative ways. The novel suggests that people must weigh up negative consequences and make choices that they believe will have positive outcomes on balance.
While Ellie’s motives are mostly innocent and often noble, the outcomes are often negative and drastic. Ellie’s initial interest in volunteering to register voters is, in part, a result of a decision she made as a 10-year-old to abandon Mattie that resulted in a terrible accident. Ellie’s remorse over that childhood decision drives her to volunteer for SCOPE. Her time as a volunteer involves a series of decisions with increasingly negative outcomes. Beyond driving a wedge between herself and her family and friends, her SCOPE participation by itself results in a cross being burned in the yard of a host family and the daughter of another host family being struck in the face with an object—thrown at Ellie—that leaves a permanent scar on her face. Because she attends a Klan rally out of curiosity, Ellie ends up in a hospital with a concussion. Because she goes dancing at a Black nightclub, she ends up spending a night in the county jail. Because she has been seen dancing with Win, her brother Buddy beats Win mercilessly. Because she agrees to meet with Win, the Klan beats and kills him. There are also ancillary, negative, consequences to her actions within her circle of loved ones: her father and brother suffer financial losses; her mother is excluded from her social circles; Garner, climbing into the treehouse to accost her, gets kicked in the head, falling to his death; Brenda, overwhelmed, loses her unborn child. This dramatic series of drastic consequences highlights the importance of thinking before making decisions; Ellie is determined in her volunteering and romance until things become too dangerous for her to continue.
While it is the case that each of these misfortunes is a result of Ellie’s decisions, none of the bad consequences would have happened if biased white individuals had not reacted against Ellie. This reality raises the question that Ellie asks herself when Buddy confronts her with the negative impact her volunteering has on her family. She asks herself, “I had to do what I thought was right, didn’t I” (255). Georgia, one of Ellie’s hosts, succinctly puts the issue before her, saying that working for racial equity implies constantly weighing the potential consequences against the importance of the mission. Ellie’s question and Georgia’s answer highlights the novel’s thematic points about the potentially drastic consequences of decisions and the need to manage risk and reward.
Grieving a Romantic Partner
None of the major characters in the novel has a spouse. Almost all of the characters have had a romantic partner and lost that person. A few weeks prior to the beginning of the 2010 narrative, Kayla’s husband, Jackson, dies in a fall within their unfinished home. Ellie’s true mate, Win, dies brutally at the hands of the Klan. Brenda’s husband dies in a fall—not while fixing the nursery light but while climbing into a treehouse to attack Ellie. Pat’s husband, Ellie’s father, dies by suicide a few months after Win’s death. Reed’s wife dies of natural causes shortly before the birth of Rainie, her granddaughter. In an intricate novel with intersecting storylines, the abrupt loss of so many spouses draws attention to the way their survivors respond to their deaths. Chamberlain suggests that those who lose a romantic partner should ensure that their grief does not perpetuate more grief for others.
Chamberlain juxtaposes two groups of characters in their grief for a romantic partner. Pat, who was a hard and bitter individual before her husband’s suicide, emotionally estranges her daughter and steels herself so that she never deals with the loss of her husband. Brenda never recovered from Garner’s death, never stopped blaming the woman he was trying to attack, and never got over the fear that their crime would be uncovered. Her resentment and fear lead her to terrorize Kayla and kidnap Rainie. At the other extreme, Reed mourns the loss of his wife, maintains his schedule, accepts the condolences of his friends, and remains emotionally present for his daughter and granddaughter. Ellie throws herself into community organizing and productive living. In the final chapter, Kayla moves forward with positive plans to rebuild upon the foundation that she built with Jackson and begin her life anew. The loss of a romantic partner, Chamberlain implies, is brutal beyond refinement. The even more important issue, the novel suggests, is how the surviving partner responds.
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