111 pages • 3 hours read
Robin RoeA List of Cages
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A 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.
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BetaChapters 47-51Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 47 Summary
The first part of the chapter is narrated by Julian as he's in the trunk. He wonders "how long [he] has been inside this shell";he turns over "[his] shell" and hears the ocean (219).
The second part is narrated by Adam waking up from another nightmare and feeling like he’s suffocating. Adam drives "aimlessly" until he finally decides to drive to Julian's house, even though it's after midnight (220). When he arrives, he doesn't see Russell's car in the driveway. He rings the doorbell, and when nobody answers, he decides to break through the window. The house is silent, and he calls out for Julian, but there's no answer. His intuition tells him something is wrong, and he starts pulling out drawers looking for something, but he doesn't know what. Then he sees the trunk with round holes drilled on the sides, and "an idea forms" that he describes as terrible (221). When the lock to the trunk won't come open, he reaches for the key on the dresser. He puts the key in the lock.
Chapter 48 Summary
All of the events in this chapter are narrated from Adam’s point of view. Adam lifts a bloody Julian out of the trunk and takes him to his car. Julian babbles about having to open the trunk again for the sake of the stars, but Adam tells Julian they have to leave. Adam drives to the emergency room. A nurse gives Julian a shot, and they put on an oxygen mask over his face and tether him "to a dozen machines" (225). Adam's unable to answer the doctor's questions about how long Julian was in the trunk, or how he got his cuts and bruises. When Adam asks the personnel if Julian's going to be okay, "the doctor's expression doesn't fill [Adam] with much confidence" (226). A nurse asks him to step into the hall, and one of the three police officers standing in the hall marches towards him.
Chapter 49 Summary
Adam narrates this chapter as he sits in the hospital room waiting to find out Julian’s test results. He asks the policeman if he's a real cop, and the policeman glares at him and flashes his badge. He makes a joke at the cop saying, "'So you're not about to rip all you clothes off and start dancing?'" (227). The policeman gets angry and tells Adam to shut up and give him a form of identification. He asks Adam what happened, and Adam tells the policeman he had a bad feeling, so he broke into Julian's house. The policeman asks Adam if he has taken anything tonight, and why he taps his foot so nervously. Adam tells the policeman he has ADHD. After questioning Adam, the policeman say they'll be in touch with him later.
Adam calls Emerald's number because "there's only one number [he] know[s] by heart" (230). Emerald calls Charlie, Allison, Jesse, Camila and Matt, and they all come to the hospital. The doctor says that Julian has no brain trauma or organ failure, but "he's depleted, dehydrated, not breathing well on his own, and his blood pressure's still too low" (231). The nurse on shifts tells Adam he can sleep in the recliner, and Adam spends the night at the hospital.
Chapter 50 Summary
Adam narrates as he’s sitting in Julian’s hospital room. A nurse comes to draw blood from Julian, and Julian whimpers. Adam asks the nurse if she has to be so rough. Adam rests his palm on Julian's forehead and looks around the room. He suddenly realizes from the murals on the wall that the hospital staff put Julian on the pediatrics ward. Adam's mother enters Julian’s hospital room saying that when she didn't see him in bed this morning, she got worried and called Charlie. She breaks down in tears and Adam gives her a hug.
Adam stays with Julian the rest of the morning. A tall lady in a purple blazer comes into Julian's room and announces she's been appointed to be Julian's guardian.
Chapter 51 Summary
This two-and-a-half page chapter is narrated by Adam. Delores Carter, the appointed guardian, hands Adam her business card and asks him if he's by himself. Adam replies he's 18 and that Julian doesn't need a guardian because Adam’s mother is contacting the judge to be Julian’s guardian. Carter explains that she believes people heal faster with loved ones, and she has no intention of keeping Julian from his friends. Julian cries on Carter's shoulder.
Emerald arrives in Julian's room with a strange, exotic potted plant and tells Adam he looks tired and should get some rest. He responds sarcastically with "'Yeah, I'll get right on that'" (240). Emerald looks confused and hurt, but Adam doesn't apologize. Emerald's perfect hairdo bothers him, and when she squeezes his hand, he doesn't squeeze back.
Chapters 47-51 Analysis
Adam’s intuition in these chapters’ scenes plays a significant role at the end of this novel. In the last chapters, Julian decides that it isn't true that people only die after they fulfill their mission in life (as Miss West told him). The reason he believes it isn’t true is that Julian’s sure his parents would have wanted to stay and take care of him, and, therefore, they did not complete their mission. Adam, however, tells Julian that it’s possible that Julian’s parents were taking care of Julian through Adam’s intuition, because Adam felt he should drive by Julian’s house, break a window and go inside, grab the key on the dresser, and open the trunk. Adam wonders if they might have been taking care of Julian by telling him “things [he] couldn't have known" (308).
It's worth noting how Adam's mental and emotional state starts to change from the point that he sees Julian in the trunk. Roe describes this moment as "a sonic blast […] [splitting] the air […] everything goes white, [he's] deaf. [he's] blind […] and [he] can't move" (222). When he takes Julian to the emergency room, Adam tries to answer the hospital personnel's questions, but he says "it's like [he's] drunk" (224). Waiting in Julian's hospital room while Julian is wheeled to get X-rays, Adam's legs go weak and he passes out. When a nurse taps him on the shoulder to tell him it's time for her shift, Adam jumps. In the hospital, Adam develops a burning sensation in his throat, and he cries "hard" (234).
Adam can’t stop crying in the hospital room because he remembers when Julian lived with him as a foster child and Julian had problems sleeping, Adam would tell Julian "to think good thoughts" (233). He told Julian that sometimes his thoughts were imagining himself becoming powerful and clever and turning into Spider-Man. When Julian said that Spider-Man was too scary for him, Adam suggested that Julian pick another character, and Julian picked Elian Mariner. Throughout the book, Julian remembers and applies Adam's advice when he can't go to sleep, and also when Russell abuses him. Adam is crying because he knows now that his childish advice did nothing to help Julian, and that Julian has found out that "superheroes aren't real, end even if they are, they come too late" (234).
