79 pages • 2 hours read
K.A. HoltHouse Arrest
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Cyclical Nature of Human Experience
House Arrest explores cause and effect and how these can occur in repeating cycles. The novel’s structure exemplifies this. It is divided into four sections, one for each season of the year. Significantly, the story begins during winter and progresses through the following fall. The four seasons correspond to characters’ circumstances and emotional states. Timothy begins his house arrest for stealing a wallet to pay for Levi’s medicine during Winter, the season when the earth is pivoted away from the sun. During Spring, a time of renewal and rebirth in the natural world, Timothy’s bond with his psychologist and probation officer develops, and he discovers the Jimenez house can be a refuge for him. Timothy’s plans flourish during summer, seasonally a time of intense life and orientation toward the sun, but his family also faces a strong test in the form of Mary, Levi’s new nurse, who (it is implied) reports the family to Child Protective Services (CPS) and advocates to have Levi institutionalized. In Fall, Timothy achieves his goals to raise money for his family and find a doctor who can help Levi, but he also violates his probation by stealing a car to take a seriously ill Levi to the hospital and is sent back to the juvenile correctional facility where he was processed after stealing the wallet.
Recurring cycles populate the novel in other ways as well. Levi’s illness is one example. In Week 9, Timothy describes the harrowing process of changing Levi’s tracheotomy tube as he cries and gasps for air. When he is finally calm and given a bottle, he “drinks too fast” and vomits, dirtying his tracheotomy ties, and “the whole scene starts over/an endless loop” (44). The Jimenez car is another example. When Mr. Jimenez acquires the car, it is “a giant rusted turtle/with no guts inside,” though Mr. Jimenez insists it was once “cool” (45). The car started its life functional, became rusted out and useless, then is repaired back to functionality through the ministrations of Mr. Jimenez and his son. Timothy’s evolution also has a cyclical dimension. Through the guidance of James and Mrs. Bainbridge, he struggles to gain understanding of and control over his emotions, going through setbacks, making progress, then experiencing more setbacks.
At the end of the book, Timothy compares the last year of his life to “one of those machines/where the ball falls into a bucket/and knocks over a bottle/that lights a match/that pops a balloon/that scares a chicken/who lays an egg/that cracks in a pan/and makes your breakfast for you” (253). Significantly, the machine in the analogy progresses from inanimate objects (ball, bucket, bottle, match, balloon) to animate: an egg-laying chicken that provides breakfast. He continues, “One year ago I made this crazy meal/that I am still eating” (253). Though Timothy has not yet fully claimed his agency by gaining control over his emotions and responses, his analogy hints that he is beginning to recognize agency as a factor in cyclical patterns, as demonstrated in his admission that he “made this crazy meal” (253).
The Impact of Poverty
The narrative demonstrates how poverty can also be a cycle and examines its impact on Timothy’s family.
It is clear from Timothy’s descriptions that he does not have enough to eat. His clothes are too small, and he lacks a winter coat. His family cannot afford to get him a flu shot. When Timothy catches the flu, he cannot go to the clinic for medical treatment because Levi would have to come with Timothy to the clinic, and Levi cannot be exposed to the germs there. Levi catches Timothy’s illness and ends up hospitalized. This increases the family’s medical expenses, further destabilizing their already fragile financial situation.
Living in poverty also forces Timothy to grow up too fast. In Week 4, he writes about knowing things he should not have to know about money struggles and health problems. In Week 5, he discusses medical terms he has learned due to Levi’s trachea problems. Throughout the book, Timothy has to sacrifice sleep, homework, and sometimes school attendance to help out with Levi because “there aren’t enough hands” (42). Further, Timothy and Levi’s father abandoned the family and disappeared from his job when Levi was an infant, leaving 12-year-old Timothy to feel he has to take over his father’s role. Timothy says he wishes he could “drive/away, away, away,” like his father did, but Timothy would not do this even if he could because “there are people to take care of./People [his father] left behind” (42).
After CPS agent Carla Ramirez investigates Timothy’s family, she finds no neglect but stipulates that Timothy is not to be left alone with Levi. Ostensibly, this is for the protection of Timothy as well as Levi. Yet this rule proves impossible to follow after Annie gets a new job. She is not permitted to call in sick during her first month and cannot risk losing her job. With no nurse to care for Levi, Timothy stays home from school to watch over his brother. When Levi becomes gravely ill, Timothy steals a car to take him to the hospital. In the process, he saves Levi’s life but is placed into a juvenile correctional facility. Had the family been able to afford full-time nursing care or been a two-parent household, perhaps Timothy would not have been forced to make an impossible choice.
