The Knife of Never Letting Go Part II
Todd just knows that he is looking at a girl, even though the pictures of women he’s seen in the heads of men are quite different. He had been told that all the women had been killed, but a girl now stands before him, wearing clothes that appear to be a newer version of his. Todd keeps the frightened girl from moving by pointing a knife at her, but when he turns to examine the map that Ben had told him about, the girl hits him in the head with a stick. Instinctively Todd cuts her with his knife, and the girl begins to bleed profusely. He forgives her for hitting him as he tries to convince her that he doesn’t mean to harm her. Todd helps the girl stop the bleeding from the cut with his bandages. The both of them then hear Aaron coming after them. Aaron emerges from the trees and attacks them. He begins to strangle Todd, but Manchee bites his leg and prevents Aaron from killing Todd. Aaron, with his face half torn away from the croc attack, notices that the girl has disappeared. His noise conveys images of the girl as a sacrifice, and he begins to chase after her.
Todd collects himself and goes after Aaron. He finds Aaron standing over the cowering girl, and attempts to rescue her but Aaron overpowers him yet again. Todd manages to severely wound Aaron with a rock when Aaron tries to drown Aaron in the river. Aaron falls unconscious, alive but barely breathing. Todd understands that he should kill Aaron but he cannot bring himself to do it. The girl and Todd head off into the woods once more leaving Aaron behind. Todd feels like the biggest coward in the world for not ending Aaron despite having the opportunity. He finally opens up the map and finds a new settlement marked on it. He had always been told that Prentisstown was the last settlement in New World. The girl doesn’t reply to him when he tries to discover if she is from the other settlement.
The girl leads him to a crash site of a metallic ship, which appears to be like the ships that the settlers had used in the initial days of the settlement for housing. There are two bodies right outside the door to the mostly destroyed ship, and they appear to be the girl’s parents. He attempts to her about them but she doesn’t answer him as she enters the ship. She returns with a rucksack that contains food and a strange box that lights up a campfire within an instant. The two of them set off toward the settlement that had been marked on the map. They climb out of the swamp after a long trek onto a small hill where the girl shows Todd how to use a pair of highly advanced binoculars. The girl's silence bothers him quite severely, she doesn’t say anything to him and she makes no Noise. As they are standing contemplating the journey ahead of them, Todd suddenly remembers the Noise germ. He fears that the girl will eventually be infected with the germ, and end up dead like the rest of the women in the New World. Just as he is thinking this thought, he notes the sudden fear in the girl’s eyes as he realizes that she can hear his Noise even if he can’t hear hers.
The girl runs back the way they had come to get away from him, and he chases after her. He tells her that he is unsure about the Noise germ, which could be a lie just like the lie that there were no other settlements other than Prentisstown. He tries to find some clues in his mother’s journal, but he isn’t very good at reading, since Mayor Prentiss outlawed books several years ago. Unable to convince the girl that he poses no danger to her, Todd returns to their packs on the hill. He hears whispering and investigates with the binoculars from the girl's bag. Todd finds Mayor Prentiss leading a search party of horsemen along the path they had taken to escape, along with a heavily bandaged Aaron. Todd races back to the girl and shows her the search party after them through his noise, and they both begin to run away as fast as they can. They reach a large bridge, but the horsemen are very close to them now. Todd tries to cut the bridge off with his knife, but it doesn’t work. Frustrated, Todd nearly attacks the silent girl, but he hits himself instead. She rescues them with the strange box, that she had used to create the campfire, as she breaks it and burns the bridge. Todd hears Mayor Prentiss yell that they would continue to follow him from across the river. The girl then introduces herself as Viola.
Analysis
The second part of the book focuses on the appearance of Viola, a woman who should not exist according to the information that Todd has given. Through her introduction, the author discredits a lot of the information that Todd has been relating in the previous passages. The reader and Todd try to discover the reality of the situation from Viola, who doesn’t supply any information besides sharing her origins through the crashed flying ship. Todd’s encounter with Viola also exposes him to the silence of women, which had driven several men of Prentisstown mad just when Todd was born. His reaction is similarly violent, as he almost hurts Viola, but Todd ultimately gains control of himself, something that the other men of Prentisstown hadn’t managed to do.
In this section, Todd confronts the idea of masculinity for the first time as he faces off against a deranged and dangerous Aaron. Todd fails to bring himself to kill the man, despite understanding the danger he exposed himself to by sparing his life. In Todd’s eyes, his mercy makes him a coward, which exposes the flawed concept of manhood that persists in the culture of Prentisstown. Throughout the book, Todd struggles to become a man following the values that he had been taught in Prentisstown, but he is prevented from achieving this due to his morality.
