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.
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BetaChapters 6-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “Teen Spirit”
The chapter opens with a dark scene in which Phil pretends to pee on Craig while they’re in bed together. Craig falls for the prank and takes revenge by peeing full force on Phil. Soon, the two boys are both peeing on each other in a fit of rage and then their mom walks in. She is disgusted and horrified and puts them both in the shower. It is the first time either of the boys has ever showered before, as their parents only let them take baths, and Craig compares the experience to an attempted baptism to cleanse their sins. He cannot scrub off the feeling of filth, and the experience haunts him years later.
Craig finishes painting Raina’s wall—a portrait of the two of them sitting in a big tree together. After the painting is finished, Craig confesses his love for Raina in a moment of passion. The images cut to a scene where Raina’s dad goes to pick up Ben from school and Ben lashes out, angry at the thought of his parents’ divorce. It then cuts back to a splash of faces as Raina takes Craig to see her school for the rest of the morning. Craig cannot believe there are 1,500 students there when his school only has 300.
Once again, Craig feels overshadowed and neglected, wanting Raina’s full attention. He draws a picture of the two of them the size of spoons, sitting at a table feeling worlds apart. He cannot help feeling like Raina drifts away from him during the daytime and only wants to be close at night. Raina seems to be getting a similar feeling and asks Craig why they should bother starting a relationship when “everything degenerates—crumbles” (371) and he is returning home soon. The chapter closes as the two drive home from a party in the dark, headlights shining on into a forested oblivion.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Just Like Heaven”
“Help me sleep tonight” (377) is the opening line of the chapter as Craig and Raina return home from the mountainside. Craig is beginning to sense more changes in the atmosphere and his relationship with Raina as their days together become increasingly numbered. Raina asks Craig why he looks at her with longing even when she is right in front of him, and he explains that lust makes him uncomfortable. A drawing of the pedophilic babysitter is placed next to this statement, along with a demonic creature reaching down over Craig. He cannot shake the idea that anything involving sex is evil because of his religion and his experiences being molested as a child.
Raina reminds Craig of his promise to help her fall asleep, and the two go off to her bedroom. The accompanying image is the two of them cuddling over a cloud that is snowing. Craig tells Raina a deeply personal story of he and his brother sharing a bed as children and pretending their bed was a boat in a sea storm. Raina is endeared and shares a similar tale of her and her siblings using her bed as a picnic table. She also describes the pet monkey she had as a child, a rambunctious and chaotic pet, whom she happened to name Snowball.
Raina asks Craig, “shipwreck or snowstorm?” (417) and the two make love for the first time, letting go of all inhibitions. Craig compares the moment to an electrical storm, and several pages depicting it are drawn. Afterward, Raina stares into Craig’s eyes and asks him never to leave her, and he promises he will not. She falls asleep, and he watches her breath rise and fall and listens to “the gentle murmur of spirits in the room” (434).
Raina’s dad walks in on them after they have both fallen asleep, but instead of getting angry, he feels saddened by his own failing relationship. He also sees Raina the way Craig does, as an angel, and does not want to disturb her as she sleeps.
Chapters 6-7 Analysis
The moment that Craig loses his virginity to Raina is pivotal in his self-transformation and in the way his faith in God transforms in the years that follow. After Craig eventually makes love to Raina soon before he leaves for home, she falls asleep beside him and “with reverence, [he] covered her body with the quilted blanket” (430) she sewed for him. He looks up on the wall and sees a hanging portrait of Jesus. Whereas before the portrait was shunning him in disappointment, it now looked on with approval and shining light. This is massive leap from the filthy, disgusting boy that he previously viewed himself as. Raina seems to be the only person that could have helped Craig in this way, because she is understanding, patient, and kind. Craig and Raina are worlds apart in terms of maturity, but they connect over their similar religious backgrounds, love for the winter, and the romantic interest they have in one another.
The imagery in these chapters is largely focused on Raina and her beauty. Craig draws Raina sleeping in different positions, Raina lying in the snow and catching snowflakes on her tongue, and Raina applying lip balm to her cold, chapped lips. He seems to notice every detail about her and wants to capture it in his memory. Many of these images are sexual in nature, but most just capture the beauty of her face and delicate movements, her expressions, and her long, flowing hair. Craig describes these days as “full of restlessness and enthusiasm” (379), in which the two were completely lost in each other and “oblivious to any other world” (379). At the end of the chapter, Craig foreshadows the changes ahead by again referencing the snow: “Sky and earth became one, trees outstretched their naked limbs, snow drifts shifted shapes—washing away to reveal tufts of briar” (446-47). He uses alliteration and highly descriptive wording alongside his drawings to provide a sense of realism and relatability to his memories.
