67 pages • 2 hours read
Gary L. BlackwoodThe Shakespeare Stealer
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
This chapter begins where the preceding chapter ended: with Widge attempting to sneak away from the property room after seeing Nick stealing the playbook. Nick spots Widge, however, and beckons him inside the room. Widge confronts Nick, and they start to fight. Eventually, Nick overpowers Widge and escapes with the playbook. During the altercation, Nick stabs Widge with a sword, and Widge looks down to see himself soaked in blood.
Sander enters the property room and is startled by Widge’s bloody appearance. Drenched in blood, Widge tells him, “Nick stuck me” (192). Sander is concerned at first, but then both boys realize that Nick stuck the fake blood bag under Widge’s costume. Widge, though shaken and bruised, is not actually bleeding. He grabs Mr. Armin in the hallway and asks him to help catch Nick, quickly explaining the stolen playbook. The two pursue Nick over the Thames River on a wherryboat. In the midst of their pursuit, the boat overturns and dumps Widge into the river.
Chapter 26 Summary
Widge is rescued by Mr. Armin, and the two contemplate where to look for Nick, who escaped with the playbook during their accident. Widge explains what he knows about Falconer’s whereabouts, and they continue to Aldersgate Street. Mr. Armin tells Widge that he will have to explain once they have recovered the play, but he lets the topic drop for the moment. On the way to Aldersgate Street, Widge and Mr. Armin discuss the situation. Widge asks, “Does it matter so much an one company besides—besides yours puts on the play” (200). Mr. Armin explains that it matters a lot because “No one has the right to the fruits of another’s labor” (200).
Upon reaching Aldersgate Street, the two sit down near a beggar man, who says that he has not seen anyone pass by matching Falconer’s description. After a few minutes, the beggar throws a pebble toward Mr. Armin, and he nods his head in the direction of an approaching figure. It is Falconer, and Mr. Armin confronts him. As the two men stand together arguing, Widge seeks out Falconer’s horse. He finds the playbook in the horse’s saddlebag and retrieves it. Though Widge tries to convince the two men to disengage, they begin dueling.
Chapter 27 Summary
The final chapter opens where the previous one ended: with Mr. Armin and Falconer dueling. Mr. Armin delivers an injurious sword thrust to Falconer, who falls while bleeding profusely. Widge and Mr. Armin hurry to dress the wound, attempting to save Falconer. To their astonishment, Falconer pulls away his own face, revealing that is has been wearing a mask all along. Falconer and Simon Bass are one in the same. After a few brief words, Falconer/Bass takes his last breath and dies.
Widge and Mr. Armin sit with the dead man until the constable arrives, then they walk back to the Globe. The Chamberlain’s Men, including Mr. Shakespeare, are lenient regarding Widge’s part in the plot to steal the playbook. He is allowed to stay on as an apprentice, and Mr. Pope invites Widge to live with him permanently.
Several weeks go by with no sight of Julia. Widge, Sander, and Mr. Armin trek to Alsatia to search for her. There, a man directs them to the house of a French family where Julia is said to be working as a serving maid. Widge and Sander make no headway in their search, however, because neither can speak French. A week before Christmas, as Widge, Sander, and Mr. Pope are walking home, a serving maid approaches them. Much to their surprise, it is Julia. She informs the boys that in the morning she is sailing to France where she is to once again be a player. Widge and Sander wish Julia well and tell her goodbye as she rushes off into her new life. The novel closes as Widge, Sander, and Mr. Pope walk home to Widge’s new “family” (216).
Chapters 25-27 Analysis
In the final chapters of The Shakespeare Stealer, all of the prominent themes in the novel converge, expanding to their final culmination with the ending. Widge is once again a witness to gruesome violence through the duel of Mr. Armin and Falconer/Simon Bass, which results in Falconer’s death. He is also involved yet again in violence himself when he confronts Nick about stealing the Hamlet playbook. As he watches Falconer die, Widge reflects:
I had not shed tears in a long time, nor did I shed them now. All the same, I was overcome with a strange sadness, at odds with the relief I had expected to feel, now that the threat which had hung over me for so long was removed. The sensation was something like what I’d felt for Julia, when she had been forced to relinquish her position as a player. I could give no name to it, unless perhaps it was the word Julia had once tried to acquaint me with—compassion (209-10).
Widge’s emotional and social development is central to the relationships in the novel. Previously, he was able to dissociate himself from violence, abuse, and neglect. However, by the end of the story he is incapable of this. During the final scene of violence in the story, Widge seems overwhelmed by the grim bloodiness and finality of Falconer’s death at Mr. Armin’s hands. Paradoxically, it is this act of violence that frees Widge from his abusive past and allows him to finally find a truly loving family.
Against the backdrop of the Shakespearean theatre setting, the concept of shifting identities and finding one’s true self complements the occupations of player and playwright. Simon Bass takes on a new identity as Falconer, urging Widge to ask, “how could ‘a bear to play a part for so long a time, and never reveal his true self” (211). Mr. Armin responds, “perhaps […] it was his true self” (211). Widge himself finds that his childhood habit of dissociation becomes useful on the stage and in life. Additionally, Julia masquerades as Julian in order to be permitted to play on the stage. Ironically, all of Julian’s parts are those of women.
Ultimately, The Shakespeare Stealer is a book about identity and about how those identities shape people and the opportunities they have. For Bass, Falconer’s deceptiveness and aggression reveal his true, evil nature. For Julia, her identity as Julian was a vehicle for her life’s calling: the stage. For Widge, his journey from orphan, to scriptographer, to player allows him to finally figure out his true identity as a person. Thus, The Shakespeare Stealer is a true coming-of-age story that follows Widge’s development.
Finally, by the conclusion of The Shakespeare Stealer, Widge finally trusts the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (with the exception of Nick), and he better understands the concepts of friendship and family. Although he thinks to himself that, “this business of friendship was a curious thing […] almost as difficult to learn as the business of acting,” Widge continues to develop in his comprehension of human connections and in his emotional maturity. The novel ends as Widge walks home with Sander and Mr. Pope and reflects on two words that he believes he now knows the true meaning of: “family” and “home” (216).
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