74 pages • 2 hours read
Ransom RiggsMiss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011A 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.
Themes
Coming of Age
Jacob’s age sets the novel up to be a good coming of age story, particularly because he is misunderstood. Abraham peppers Jacob with fantastical stories that get him in trouble with his classmates and, eventually, his family. Witnessing his role model’s death places a burden on Jacob, a burden he must overcome. It is the journey to overcome the burden and mystery of his grandfather’s death that provides the backdrop for Jacob’s coming of age story. At the start of the novel, he is scared, unsure, and untrusting. However, he evolves, with occasional slips, to become brave, confident, and trusting. The end of the novel solidifies this coming of age theme by providing Jacob a chance to choose between the easy path (going home) and the hard one (leaving with the peculiar children). He completes the cycle by going with his new friends.
Family
Family is a huge theme throughout the book. Abraham’s family is taken and killed by the Nazis. His adopted family is accosted by the hollowgast. It is his strong feelings for family that drive him out of the loop and to war. Additionally, it is family that prevents him from going back to the loop later. Despite his poor relationship with his son, Abraham works hard to build a relationship with Jacob, a relationship that becomes the foundation for an incredible journey.
Jacob’s own relationship with his father becomes more important as Jacob explores the island and Abraham’s past. Although Franklin neither believes nor encourages Jacob’s pursuit for discovery, he does come to understand his son’s journey, and Jacob grows closer to his father. They become close enough that Jacob tries to share his discovery and the reason for his departure with his father near the end of the novel.
Overcoming Fear
Fear pervades the novel. From Abraham’s fear to the peculiar children’s fear, the struggle between allowing fears to consume versus conquering them is a large theme throughout the story. Jacob’s fear is the most obvious because of his unique position as the narrator, but readers are also exposed to other characters fears, as seen through Jacob’s eyes. Abraham’s fear sets the tone for the entire novel: his frantic desire to get into his gun trunk to protect himself from something sinister and unbelievable (at least to everyone else) makes Abraham’s fear of monsters a benchmark.
In comparison, other characters’ fears appear silly. Franklin fears that he does not know or understand a topic better than anyone else, which is keeping him from completing a book. His fear about understanding his father keeps him from growing as a character, a person. Rather than taking the journey, like Jacob does, he hides from the journey of discovering his father’s story, thus preventing himself from gaining truth and conquering fear.
Emma’s fear of acknowledging Abraham’s death causes her to treat Jacob with anger and distrust. However, once she faces the fear of Abraham’s being dead, she opens herself up to knowing and trusting Jacob—an important step for the evolution of the novel.
Knowledge versus Ignorance
As with most novels, a binary opposition can be identified as a theme. In this case, Jacob’s less-than-blissful ignorance of his grandfather’s past prevents him from being happy. He is stuck in a job he does not care for and has few meaningful relationships. His grandfather’s death sparks the eventual gathering of knowledge. Without his grandfather’s death, Jacob may not have found a reason to explore the world and himself. The tragic death of Abraham forces Jacob to confront the issues he has had since childhood: what did his grandfather’s stories mean? Was that tentacle-mouthed monster at the crime scene real?
Miss Peregrine represents Jacob’s access to knowledge in the loop while Martin represents Jacob’s access to knowledge in his own time. Martin gives Jacob the keys to open the door to the loop and Miss Peregrine provides the keys to open the door to the past, to his grandfather. The more time Jacob explores what both Martin and Miss Peregrine have planted for him, the more knowledge he gains and the further from ignorance he gets.
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By Ransom Riggs
