The War That Saved My Life

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2015

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-13

Chapters 14-19

Chapters 20-25

Chapters 26-31

Chapters 32-39

Chapters 40-46

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Character Analysis

Ada Smith

Ada is the protagonist and narrator of the story. She is 10 years old at the beginning of the novel, although she doesn’t know her real age or birth date until near the end of the book when she discovers her birth certificate. Ada is born with a clubfoot. Her handicap brings deep shame to her mother, Mam, who keeps her isolated in the family’s one-room apartment.

Ada is the primary focus of her mother’s physical and verbal abuse. When the story opens, she is malnourished and suffers from rickets, impetigo, and chilblains. She’s accustomed to physical and emotional pain while living with Mam, but under Susan’s care Ada becomes physically healthy and emotionally open to trusting people. She also grows more confident and secure, eventually finding the strength and courage to walk away from Mam. She progresses from the role of the abused, inexperienced victim to the role of the hero—rescuing Margaret, assisting in the capture of a spy, and learning to walk and read.

Mam

Mam is the mother of Ada and Jamie and the antagonist in the novel. She works nights at the pub below the family’s one-room London apartment, then moves to a two-room apartment when she gets a factory job once the war begins. She is physically and verbally abusive toward her children, and she confesses at the end of the novel that she never wanted children at all.

Mam is ashamed of Ada’s clubfoot and frustrated at raising two unwanted children on her own after her husband’s death. Her reaction to her circumstances is to lash out abusively at her children. Some in London feel sorry for her, and Jamie misses her when he leaves the first time, but aside from Ada’s forced memories of good times, there are no redeeming qualities in her character. She is a character foil to Susan, who also never wanted children but shows the children empathy and kindness.

When Mam reveals that she would rather Ada stay crippled, she asks Ada if she thinks she’s better than her. The interaction suggests that Mam is jealous of Ada’s newfound independence and wishes her to be afraid and incapable, as she was before. This is perhaps because crippled Ada is easier to control, and Mam enjoys inflicting suffering on the child.

Jamie (James) Smith

Jamie is Ada’s younger brother. He is six years old and about to start school at the beginning of the story. Ada describes Jamie as having “a mop of dirt-brown hair, the eyes of an angel, and the soul of an imp” (3). He is malnourished while living with Mam in London, but after living with Susan for one year, he’s taller, healthier, and cleaner. Jamie develops an interest in airplanes while living across the road from the airfield and learns to identify different types of planes just from the sound of their motors.

Jamie is constantly hopeful that Mam will return for him and Ada and everything can go back to the way it was before the war. He wants to believe that Mam will accept Ada, but his hopes are crushed when Mam does return and the abuse begins again. He often looks to Ada as a protector, so he trustfully follows her plan when they leave Mam for a second time.

Jamie, too, is traumatized by his time with his mother, and he expresses his trauma by wetting the bed. While his mother beats him for this infraction, Susan seeks to make him feel more secure.

Susan Smith

Susan is a single woman with distinctively disheveled blond hair who lives in a village in Kent. She reluctantly takes in Ada and Jamie at the insistence of Lady Thorton. Susan describes herself as “not a nice person at all” (41) and insists that she never wanted children, yet she treats them better than their own mother ever has.

Susan has a strained relationship with her father, and her mother is dead. She identifies her university education as the source of the tension with her father. He is originally pleased with her admission to Oxford but doesn’t like that Susan doesn’t get married after completing her studies. Instead of starting a traditional family, Susan shares a home with her best friend, Becky. After Becky’s death, Susan falls into a pattern of depressive behavior which is broken when Ada and Jamie arrive. Despite never wanting children before, Susan grows to love Ada and Jamie.

Susan proves to be a good and patient mother to the children, adapting to their traumatized behaviors. When Ada has panic attacks, Susan wraps her tightly in a blanket. When Jamie wets the bed, she takes him to the air base to soothe his fears. She shows Ada slow affection, knowing that Ada has an adverse reaction to touch. By the end of the novel, Susan says that the children saved her from the bomb, but they also likely saved her from her depression.