40 pages • 1 hour read
Craig ThompsonBlankets
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | YA | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
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BetaChapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Cubby Hole”
Craig and his younger brother Phil share a room together in their childhood home. They also share a bed, and frequently get in arguments as a result. In the opening scene, Craig’s father storms in during a squabble and takes Phil to a room called the “cubby hole,” a “strip of space with splintery, rotten floorboards” (15) to separate them. It is dark and dirty, and Phil begs not to be left there. Their dad is drawn as a large, intimidating, darkly shadowed figure with no eyes. He shouts at them in anger. Craig reflects on his childhood and expresses his guilt and regret for not only failing to protect his younger brother, but often rejecting him and scaring him about the future. Craig also reveals that he is bullied at school for being of Spanish descent and skinny. He is physically and verbally abused regularly.
Craig’s teacher bullies him as well, berating him in front of his classmates. Craig writes a poem about all the people who have hurt him eating their own excrement and thinks to himself, “if only God could forgive me for all the times I pictured people eating their own excrement” (29). One of the people pictured is Craig and his brother’s babysitter, who the text implies is a pedophile who tricks him and his brother into letting him touch them. Craig is attacked from all angles in his life and fantasizes about running away. This is the reason Craig wants to sleep well at night—he wants to dream of other, better places. He draws out one of the dreams he has, a mixing swirl of clouds, creatures, and strange shapes. Dreaming and drawing are Craig’s “getaway cars” (44), and he frequently draws with his younger brother, Phil. Drawing is the main vessel through which the two boys connect, and Craig describes the days drawing and running around outside with Phil as his only worthwhile childhood experiences.
Craig comes from a devout Christian family and attends church every Sunday. In grade three, his Sunday School teacher explains death and the prospect of heaven. It has a strong influence on how Craig perceives the world, and he grows up “striving for that world—an eternal world—that would wash away [his] misery” (52). He enters an identity crisis in his senior year, feeling like life is pointless and nothing is worthwhile except waiting for heaven. He then realizes that he has only been half-living a life of faith because he spends much of his time drawing, something he takes pleasure in and considers a selfish pursuit. He burns his drawings as a sacrifice to God and a way to cleanse himself of his childhood memories and pain. When his Sunday School teacher describes hell as a dark and lonely place, Craig cannot help but recall his brother trapped inside the cubby hole, alone and in the dark.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Stirring Furnace”
At the farmhouse where Craig and his family live, it is boiling hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. Craig and Phil bond over their struggles with heat and cold, finding ways to cope together. They spend winters outside, building snowmen and playing together. Craig has fond memories of Christmas time as well, though his Christmas break is interrupted each year by a week-long trip to Christian camp. Many of Craig’s drawings have an element of humor to them, with one example being the bus that transports kids to Christian camp. He depicts the bus flying down the road with a giant baby Jesus strapped to the top.
At church camp, Craig is bullied just like he is at school. He is berated for being poor and different, and he feels inner shame convincing himself that God must not love him the way he loves other kids. He often draws strangers and other students as demonic-looking, dark, and devoid of humanity because he feels isolated and unlike the people around him. Craig’s skepticism towards his religion begins when he observes the way his church camp promotes a “mass mentality” amongst the teenagers attending (106). He explains that the personal aspect of Christianity is what draws him to it, but that this hive mind mentality is beginning to turn him away from it.
Craig continues attending church camp in high school, but “learns to spot the other outsiders” and thus finds it more tolerable (88). It is there that Craig first meets Raina, a moment depicted without any dialogue or description. He and Raina look at each other and smile, sharing a moment of tender connection, when Craig first approaches her friend group on the first day of church camp. Raina and Kie accept Craig readily, but Van is guarded and tests Craig’s beliefs on religion and marijuana. Craig is intimidated by the group’s loose attitude towards smoking pot and decides to leave, which disappoints Raina.
Craig begins developing a relationship with Raina. She tells him that she admires his courage to stand up for himself, both against the popular Christian kids and against Van when he pressured Craig into smoking pot. They hide together under a couple of skeeball machines while everyone else heads off to chapel, and Raina falls asleep on Craig while he strokes her hair. He is already falling in love with her.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
The first two chapters in Blankets set the premise for the entire graphic novel in terms of setting, major characters, and foreshadowing significant points in the plot. Craig introduces himself and his brother as young boys in the first chapter as they fight over their shared blanket. Craig’s father is also introduced here and is shown to be a terrifying authority figure in the boys’ lives. Their babysitter molests them as well, which Craig looks back on with disgust and guilt. This foundation of unreliable and abusive caretakers as well as Craig’s self-blame and guilt for things beyond his control manifests in his religious beliefs. Craig’s early religion involves shame and exclusivity, and he never truly feels he belongs. Craig will even believe at one point that God doesn’t like him, as this fits with his understanding of authority figures: They don’t like him, and it’s his fault.
Craig and his brother have some positive experiences as children, most of which revolve around snow or their shared passion for drawing. Snow and art will become important symbols for Craig as the story continues. The graphic novel’s style speaks to the importance of art, and Craig’s reintroduction to art is the most pivotal development in his character. Craig will also use snow and winter imagery to depict his happiest moments in the novel, such as in intimate moments with Raina.
Craig also describes his life at school, where his peers ostracize and bully him for being small and of Spanish descent, saying things like “bet you can’t wait to get home to your cradle” (33). His teachers also bully him. This victimization follows him at church camp as well, and Craig struggles with the teachings of his faith from a young age. His religion instills immense guilt in him that characterizes him through his entire youth.
In the second chapter, Craig is in his senior year and meets Raina for the first time at church camp. Their love immediately begins to blossom. Raina is a bit of a risk-taker, and she already starts taking Craig out of his comfort zone. This foreshadows events to come, as Raina pushes Craig further and further until he is finally able to let go of his inhibitions and guilt. Raina, his first real friend, is the impetus for the beginning of Craig’s coming-of-age character arc.
The tone and style of the novel are also set in the first two chapters. Craig draws with an elegant but simplistic style that depicts characters and scenes in emotive ways. Craig draws himself, both as a child and as a teenager before his experiences with Raina, as a timid and ragged person who lacks confidence in himself and the world around him. This is most obvious in his constantly worried brow. He also has an innocent air about him, partially because of his sheltered religious upbringing.
For most of the novel, there is a sense of romance and dreaminess that accompanies the snow and the experiences that Craig has with Raina and with his brother Phil. Craig draws images of himself floating in the sky in his dreams, and of demons being expelled when he burns all his drawings in repentance to God. The way Craig writes matches his drawings, as he writes in a way that flows and often includes poetic prose in his descriptions of scenery, his thoughts, and especially of Raina. Many of his descriptions are detailed accounts and drawings of the snow that falls and sits around him: “A snowflake alit my nose—and melted. It was followed by a flurry” (92-93).
