44 pages • 1 hour read
Craig SilveyJasper Jones
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2009A 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 8-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
Charlie’s mother leaves town. She went home after seeing Charlie and screamed at Wes, who stayed calm and let her go. Before she left, she damaged Wes’s manuscript and took Charlie’s suitcase. After her departure, Charlie wonders if his father always knew about his mother’s infidelity, and he wonders if Wes stayed with her out of loyalty or because he wanted to protect Charlie. Charlie’s mother goes back to her family, and they spoil her. Charlie knows that his mother has cut ties with him as well.
Charlie reads his father’s manuscript and really enjoys it. He is no longer jealous. Eliza does not tell the police anything, but they interrogate her for a long time because everyone realizes that she knows something. Her parents do not punish her. Eliza tells her mother that Laura’s accusations against her father were true and that Laura killed herself and her baby. The baby is described as a barnacle. Eliza believes that her mother betrayed Laura, and she tells her mother that she will tell her where Laura is if her mother tells people the truth. However, Eliza’s mother never does so. Eliza assures Charlie that her father will get his deserved punishment.
Chapter 9 Summary
Trent makes a wager with Charlie that Charlie will not steal peaches from Lionel. In the wager, if Charlie steals the peaches, Trent will leave him and Jeffrey alone. If Charlie does not do it, Trent will tie him naked to the door of the Miners’ Hall. Jeffrey offers to go with Charlie to steal the peaches. Because Jeffrey does not know that Lionel is harmless, this act demonstrates true courage. Charlie goes onto Lionel’s property, but the only peaches left are on the ground, covered in insects. Charlie sees Lionel, and they arrange for Lionel to come out with a gun and pretend to be knocked down by Charlie. Charlie is afraid to touch the peaches because of the insects, but he does it anyway, and all the children are amazed when Charlie supposedly takes down Lionel.
Everyone sees smoke. Charlie makes his way quickly to Eliza’s house, which is burning. Eliza and her mom watch it burn while her father gets medical treatment on the lawn. Charlie thinks of Eric Cooke, one of the murderers he read about, who said he committed murder simply because he wanted to hurt somebody. Now, people blame Jasper Jones for the fire. Charlie knows that Jasper had already left town before the fire started, but nobody noticed Jasper missing or went looking for him. They did not notice his disappearance until now
Chapters 8-9 Analysis
As the author relates the fallout from Charlie and Jasper’s adventure and Eliza’s confession of the truth, several dominant themes become apparent. By enduring Ruth’s tirade prior to her abandonment of her family, Wes demonstrates The Role of Freedom in Personal Growth, for he understands that there is simply no more to be done to keep his marriage together, and he accepts the necessity of letting Ruth go her own way. Ultimately, his decision to simply let her go results in a much more favorable living situation for himself and for his son, as both characters show signs of being able to bond with each other and fully embrace who they want to be in life. In all of his contemplations, Charlie also continues to enjoy Using Literature to Broaden Perspective, for whenever he is confronted with a real-life dilemma, or simply with philosophical musings, he always relies on his previous reading to create solutions and explanations. In the confessions of murderers, he finds explanations for why people do terrible things. In the actions of heroes, he finds examples for how to handle challenging situations and solve ethical dilemmas. As the story concludes, it is clear that he will continue to rely on this technique as his road to maturity continues.
With the burning of Eliza’s house, the author creates a grim sense of partial justice for the many troubles that she and Laura faced in that household every day. Although no one is fatally injured, it is significant that Eliza’s father suffers the greatest injury, for he bears the lion’s share of the culpability for Laura’s decision to take her own life. Given Charlie’s fixation on literary solutions to life’s problems, it is also significant that the author chooses to write such an ambiguous conclusion to the entire drama, for by doing so, he emphasizes that in real life, the villains and the heroes are not always so easily defined, and those who commit the greatest wrongs do not always receive sufficient punishment for them. Likewise, Eliza’s implied act of arson, while itself morally ambiguous, serves as a form of retribution even as it falls far short of its goal; Eliza’s mother never fully admits her own guilt in the situation, and Laura’s death cannot be undone. Thus, the burning of Eliza’s house symbolizes that the family dynamics themselves have gone up in flames and can never be repaired—perhaps rightfully so.
Jeffrey is the character that most of the children pick on, but by the end of the novel, he has demonstrated that he is the most heroic of all of the people in the town. Whenever he is beaten or put down, he stands back up and keeps going. He maintains a positive attitude and stays loyal to Charlie. Here at the end of the novel, when Charlie wants to go steal some peaches from Lionel, Jeffrey really believes that Charlie is in danger of being shot. He does not want his friend to experience this alone, so he faces his own fears and offers to go with him, showing that he will risk his life for Charlie even if Charlie willingly puts his life in danger. Through this, Charlie can see the real strength that Jeffrey has. It has taken Charlie the space of the entire novel to overcome his fear, but it is immediately apparent from this scene that Jeffrey already possesses the strength to act in spite of his fears, thus demonstrating The Link Between Responsibility and Maturity.
Although it is a very small part of the novel and stands outside of the author’s primary themes, Charlie’s trip to get Lionel’s peaches can be interpreted as a hero’s journey of sorts. A hero’s journey occurs in literature when a character goes on a journey to accomplish one task but actually accomplishes another, more important, task. Charlie goes to the peach tree in order to prove his courage to the other boys, but unlike Jeffrey, he is not acting courageously because he knows that Lionel is a friend, not a threat. When he gets there, however, he unexpectedly has to face something that he perceives as a real threat: insects. He manages to overcome his fear and pick up the rotten, bug-ridden peaches even because the need to prove himself to the other boys supersedes his long-standing fear of insects. Ironically, in the process of trying to falsely prove his courage, he actually encounters a situation that requires him to show the beginnings of real courage.
