The White Mountains Week 4

"The bitter thing was all the spirit, all the gallantry, was wasted. For even more than inferiors, they accepted and looked forward to being Capped. It was a part of becoming a knight, or of turning from a girl to lady. Thinking of this, I saw how good things could be meaningless in isolation. What value did courage have, without a free and challenging mind to direct it?" -p111


In this chapter, Will was sick and the three boys have been taken to the castle, and Will was living in the red castle where Eloise and the Comtesse looked after him. Will was having a wonderful life which he loved, and he became closer to the Comte's family, especially Eloise. After their friendship got even closer and Will discovered that Eloise was also capped, he started to look at the Capping with a different point of view. At first when he came to the castle and saw how people were happy and still did their own thing, he thought it was worthless since they were still being controlled. However meeting Eloise, he started to think differently because the Comte's family was all so nice even though they were capped. He thought that maybe he should stay behind at the castle letting Henry and Beanpole go on while he got capped. He considered the option because he really loved Eloise and he thought that if he got capped, he would still be able to live a happy life with Eloise, and that was all that mattered to him at that time. But when Eloise told Will how she was about to spend the rest of her life serving the Tripods, she was absolutely joyful and her attitude shocked Will. This made Will wake up to the fact that freedom was the thing he seeked and not a life with a cap on his head controlling his thoughts and actions. This whole chapter revolves around the idea of freedom because at first Will enters the castle with a mind full of hope for freedom but after he was nursed by Eloise his feelings toward capping changed dramatically and he almost forgot about the true reason he left Wherton. But luckily he was able to wake up and continue his journey to the White Mountains for freedom.