42 pages • 1 hour read
Katherine PatersonThe Great Gilly Hopkins
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Dust and Desperation”
Gilly has an opportunity to search Mr. Randolph’s bookshelf for more money. She asks Agnes Stokes and William Ernest to help her. While Agnes Stokes watches outside for Maime Trotter and William Ernest to get home, William Ernest climbs up on Gilly’s shoulders to search behind the encyclopedia for more money. He finds another large wad of cash, and Maime Trotter and Mr. Randolph arrive. Gilly quickly grabs the money. She is disappointed when her theft brings her to only $44 dollars total. The next day, she gives Agnes $5 for helping her, and considers giving William Ernest $1, but decides against it because she is so far from her goal of $136.60.
Gilly concocts another scheme to search Mr. Randolph’s bookshelf more thoroughly. She offers to dust both Maime Trotter’s and Mr. Randolph’s homes and convinces them to let her use a step ladder to clean. After thoroughly dusting Maime Trotter’s house, she goes to Mr. Randolph’s to dust, but there isn’t any money hidden anywhere. In a last desperate bid to go to San Francisco, she mails her biological mother a letter asking for the money. In the letter, Gilly calls Maime Trotter “a religious fanatic,” Mr. Rudolph “weird,” and makes fun of William Ernest (76). Gilly hastily mails the letter.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The One-Way Ticket”
Gilly feels bad about what she wrote in the letter, but she is frustrated by Maime Trotter’s devotion to her religious faith, particularly the fact that Gilly must spend several hours at church every Sunday morning. After Sunday school, Gilly tells the children what adultery is and shares neighbor gossip in exchange for a few cents. During dinner with Mr. Randolph, he mentions that his fifty-year-old son, a lawyer in Virginia, is visiting soon. Gilly gets nervous that his son will notice the money missing from the bookshelf. Stressed that she will get caught, she notices that Maime Trotter has around $100 dollars in her purse and decides that she will steal the money from Maime Trotter and leave for San Francisco that day.
After Maime Trotter falls asleep in the living room, Gilly leaves for the bus station. At the bus station, the clerk is suspicious. He asks her if her mother knows where she is. Gilly says that she is going to see her in San Francisco. The police show up and take Gilly to the police station. Gilly is terrified but she cannot think of a way to escape: her brain feels like a “wooly mammoth deep in a glacier” (89). The officer gives Gilly the choice to go back or stay, and after William Ernest pleads with her, Gilly returns to Maime Trotter.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Pow”
Miss Ellis argues with Maime Trotter about whether it is best for Gilly to stay with her. Gilly eavesdrops on the conversation and hears Miss Ellis telling Maime Trotter that Gilly is “a troubled child” (94) and it would be best for her and William Ernest if Gilly moved to another foster home. Maime Trotter fights for Gilly to stay with her, saying that Miss Ellis cannot “tell a mother how to feel.” Miss Ellis reminds Maime Trotter that she is “a foster mother” (94).
Gilly asks Miss Ellis about Courtney, and Miss Ellis tells Gilly that she wrote to Courtney months before and Courtney did not respond. Gilly decides to stay with Maime Trotter until her “real mom” (96) comes to get her. Maime Trotter is angry with Gilly about the stolen money, and Gilly admits that she stole from Mr. Randolph also. Mr. Randolph accepts the returned money with a thank you. He is surprised because he did not know about the money in the shelves.
Gilly holds Mr. Randolph’s hand for the first time as she walks him over to Maime Trotter’s house for dinner. Maime Trotter decides to give Gilly an opportunity to pay back the part of the stolen money by giving her pennies for completing chores. Gilly begins tutoring William Ernest for a quarter every hour. Gilly resolves to teach William Ernest self-defense. Maime Trotter doesn’t like it, but she accepts that William Ernest needs to learn how to defend himself. Maime Trotter gives Gilly a big kiss on the forehead, and Gilly is happy.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Gilly’s plan to leave Thompson Park and go to San Francisco to be with her biological mother fails miserably. The failure of her plan to take a bus to California deepens her relationship with Maime Trotter and Gilly starts feeling attached to her new family.
The author uses metaphors to capture Gilly’s terror at becoming attached to the people in Thompson Park. Between Maime Trotter’s warm and affectionate personality, which she compares to “heat,” and her teacher Miss Harris’s “computer brain,” which she compares to “cold,” Gilly is overwhelmed by the fear that she will become weak (60). Gilly’s fear of being abandoned drives her to commit to leaving for San Francisco.
While using Agnes to help her search Mr. Randolph’s house, Gilly thinks about how Agnes’ biological father is still listed in the phone book at Agnes’ address. Gilly jealously thinks that the phone book is telling “another of the world’s lies” (61). This personification shows Gilly’s anger at being publicly perceived as someone in the foster care system. She is resentful about not having a permanent home, and her anger motivates her to lie and manipulate everyone while she plans her getaway.
She lies to William Ernest so that he will help her, but William Ernest is surprisingly difficult to convince. The author uses imagery to express William Ernest’s hesitation and Gilly’s exasperation with him. Gilly describes him “blinking stupidly” (62) while she tries to explain why they need to search Mr. Randolph’s bookshelf. Gilly can make up lies on the spot easily. She tells William Ernest that it is a “surprise for Trotter” (63) and that is why they need to go search by themselves, and she lies to Agnes about how much money she found so that she can give Agnes less. When she has the idea to dust the homes, the author uses imagery of coldness, comparing the dust lying on top of the television set to “a gray frost” (66). This metaphor connects Gilly’s calculating plan to a feeling of coldness, capturing the emotional coldness that Gilly is armoring herself with while she lies and steals.
Gilly is not calm as she seems, and even begins to feel guilty. The author describes Gilly’s hands shaking when she calls Agnes. She also uses a serial sentence to capture the frantic emotions Gilly feels when she steals the rest of the money from Mr. Rudolph’s bookshelves: “Gilly nearly fell off the chair as she snatched W.E. off her shoulders, then scrambled back on top of the chairback, tilted ‘Sarsaparilla to Sorcery’ back in place, jumped down, stuffed the roll of bills into her jeans, shoved the heavy chair forward, grabbed a startled William, and dragged him out the back door” (64). The use of imagery, serial listing, and verbs show the lengths that Gilly is going so that she can see Courtney. When Mr. Rudolph praises Gilly for her work ethic after she offers to dust his home, Gilly begins to feel guilty, but she justifies her actions by thinking that taking advantage of others is “the only way to get where [she] had to go” (68). The simple diction of this statement captures Gilly’s determination to see Courtney at any cost.
At the police station, a police officer named Mitchell grabs the photo of Courtney and Gilly reacts angrily. Officer Rhine tells Officer Mitchell to “put her picture down” (90). Officer Rhine is kind to Gilly and gives her the option to go home with Maime Trotter or stay overnight at the station. Maime Trotter’s and William Ernest’s love for Gilly is shown through the imagery in the moment when Gilly is deciding whether to stay at the police station or go home: Maime Trotter’s face is described as “stricken” (92), and William Ernest’s “blood vessels stood out blue and strained on his white neck” (92) when he begs Gilly to come home.
When Miss Ellis meets with Maime Trotter after hearing about Gilly’s attempt to run away, Gilly compares Miss Ellis’ voice to a “fake Christmas tree” (95). This metaphor shows that Gilly does not trust Miss Ellis after hearing her tell Maime Trotter that Gilly should be placed with another family. Miss Ellis’ discomfort with discussing Gilly’s biological mother is shown in the descriptive language the author uses: Miss Ellis’ eyebrows “jumped” and “twitched madly” (95-96) when Gilly asks if she can live with Courtney. Though Miss Ellis is stressed and unsure what to do, it does appear that she cares about Gilly and does not want to hurt her feelings.
Maime Trotter’s forgiving personality is shown in how she treats Gilly after Gilly’s admits to stealing. Instead of punishing Gilly, she lectures her and then gives her a chance to pay part of the money back by doing chores and tutoring William Ernest. When Gilly teaches William Ernest how to defend himself, Maime Trotter is proud. Instead of pushing away Maime Trotter’s love, Gilly accepts it for the first time: After Maime Trotter kisses her forehead, Gilly’s hand “went up automatically to wipe the spot, but a look at Maime Trotter’s face, and Gilly stopped her arm midway” (102). Gilly is becoming more comfortable with her new family and more sensitive to their feelings. For the first time in many years, Gilly feels at home.
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