The Silent Boy

Each chapter of this book begins with an actual photograph from the 1900s. This helps frame the narrative and root it in the depicted historical time period. The images are black and white, grainy, and slightly haunting. Coupled with the photos is Lowry’s narrative technique, which portrays Katy’s memories in a photographic style. For example, Katy’s mother shows her a photo from her youth: “I peered at the photograph of two solemn little girls, side by side, wearing hats, and gradually I remembered that day at the lake. It was summer. It came to me in fragments, in little details” (81). Later, Katy learns of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire and emotionally connects with a photograph in the newspaper: “It was raining, and the newspaper picture showed thousands of umbrellas; I wanted to be there, holding a black umbrella, with rain dripping from the edge, and to bow my head as they were carried past, to the cemetery” (100). Katy wants to be part of the photograph, to experience grief in that real way. Just before we learn what terrible event transpired with Jacob, Katy describes Mr. Bishop taking photos of Nell and Peggy: “When I look at it, I am aware that it was the last time, that day in the Bishops’ garden, that all of us were together and happy” (159). Lowry uses photographs throughout the book to invoke particular moods and to add a layer of complexity that the young narrator cannot otherwise bring in.

A shirtwaist is a particular style of blouse popular in the 20th century. Katy learns about a fire that takes place in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, killing hundreds of young women. This is Katy’s first introduction to the disparities between genders as well as classes. She recognizes that girls her age were already working in factories instead of going to school, and they were working in such poor conditions that they were unprotected from the fire, forced to jump from windows rather than burn to death. She goes to her mother’s room to find a shirtwaist to mourn, but she can’t find one because her mother’s clothes are mostly custom made. Katy’s world is far removed from the girls who work in factories in New York City, and the symbolic use of the shirtwaist helps illuminate that disparity: Katy is safe, protected, and privileged. Later in the novel, when Katy sees Paul and Nell in the hay, she notices that Nell’s “apron was untied and her shirtwaist had come loose from her skirt” (157). Here we have another example of an unprotected girl, symbolically represented by her shirtwaist as expendable, who is being used by people with more power and status than her.