The Institute

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019

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.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7, Chapters 1-28

Part 7, Chapters 29-42

Part 8

Part 9

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 8: “The Big Phone”

Part 8, Chapters 1-7 Summary

Luke, Tim, and Mrs. Sigsby are on their way to the airstrip where the retrieval team left their jet. Luke telephones Stackhouse and tells him to have a bus ready for the children near the flagpole in front of the Institute. Luke will exchange the flash drive then.

When Luke hangs up, Tim points out that his plan won’t work because Stackhouse could easily shoot the children. Luke explains that he doesn’t actually care about the bus; he is buying time for his friends.

Back at the Institute, Avery, Kalisha, Nicky, George, and Helen dream about ringing telephones. Every time one of them answers a phone, they hear someone ask, “Can you hear me?” in a different language: Children in Institute facilities all over the world are tuning in to Avery’s telepathic signal boosted by the Ward A children.

Part 8, Chapters 8-20 Summary

At the Institute, the children dream of a big phone that will link the other phones together. Avery tells his friends that when all the other Institutes tune in and Luke arrives, they will answer the big phone.

Stackhouse prepares an ambush for Luke, and chlorine gas is ready to be pumped into the HVAC system as soon as he receives the flash drive.

Tim, Luke, and Mrs. Sigsby arrive at the town closest to the Institute. Before leaving the plane, Tim makes Mrs. Sigsby wear a baseball cap, and he wears one as well—but backward. Taking a car left for them by Stackhouse, they leave for the Institute. When they get close, Tim makes Mrs. Sigsby drive and tells her to turn her baseball cap backward to match his.

At the Institute, Avery decides to sacrifice himself. He tells Kalisha, Nicky, George, and Helen to head for the playground when the time is right; afterward, he will answer the big phone.

Part 8, Chapters 21-23 Summary

The car arrives, and Stackhouse sees that the driver is wearing a baseball cap turned backward—which matches a spy’s description of Tim. Stackhouse raises his hand to signal his shooters before he realizes the driver isn’t Tim but Mrs. Sigsby. He decides it’s too late to save her and signals the shooters to open fire. At the same time, the staff pumps chlorine gas into the HVAC system to poison the children.

Tim presses Luke to the floor, shielding the boy with his body while the shooters fill the car with bullets and flying glass—then the shooting stops, replaced by a grinding roar. Raising his head, Tim sees Front Half pull itself off the ground and into the air.

Inside the tunnel, the door keeping the children trapped tears out of its frame. Kalisha, Nicky, George, and Helen escape to the playground, leaving Avery and the Ward A children behind; the latter are crushed by the tunnel, Avery’s final thought being “I loved having friends” (519). Front Half drops, crushing the administration building.

The few remaining Institute members surrender. When Stackhouse sees Tim for the first time, he notes his height and broad shoulders, a hero’s appearance—bar his glasses. He reminds himself that Superman’s secret identity—Clark Kent—wears glasses too.

Luke is reunited with Kalisha, Nicky, George, and Helen, and Tim takes them back to DuPray.

Part 8 Analysis

Stackhouse and Mrs. Sigsby believe Luke’s plan to exchange his friends for the flash drive is childishly simplistic. It fits their image of him as just another child, not a strategic genius. By underestimating the children, Stackhouse and Mrs. Sigsby put themselves at a disadvantage. Stackhouse is at least intelligent enough to suspect Luke is hiding something, but he never thinks beyond this. Luke successfully manipulates them both into complacency.

Mrs. Sigsby genuinely doesn’t understand Tim’s motive for helping Luke, the desire to protect being beyond her comprehension or imagination. Cults often recruit people who lack something to ground them otherwise. Mrs. Sigsby lacks the ability to connect with others—perhaps to the point of failing to recognize them as real, as demonstrated by her shock at being shot by Deputy Wendy. The Institute only provides her with the illusion of belonging, of family.

Cults also provide their members with meaning. Meaning can either come from within, or outside the self. Luke, Tim, and their friends live their lives to the fullest by acting on internal values like love and honor. Mrs. Sigsby lacks the ability to find purpose within herself, the Institute filling this void with its mission to save the world.

When Luke is first introduced in Part 2, his teachers liken him to a 12-year-old Jesus educating others, but he is not the sacrificial savior of the story—it is Avery. But Avery isn’t Jesus, he (along with the Ward A children) is the blinded and enslaved Samson, who took hold of the pillars of his enemy’s temple and killed them both in the collapse.

When Luke, Avery, and their friends link minds, they attract the attention of other Institute children all over the world, who join the battle to destroy their own temples. Tending to one’s own corner of the world the way Tim watches over DuPray may feel insignificant compared to the Institute’s alleged disasters—but it comes from a place of love, of relinquishing fear and control for the better. Stackhouse likening Tim to Clark Kent rather than Superman highlights the latter as an ordinary man, not a superhero. Tim shields Luke from bullets as a Clark Kent—and this is enough. The story promises that the kindness of ordinary people will be enough.