White mts. #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?" (p. 111)

The passage above relates to the theme freedom as well as the rest of the book, to support this it explains how people just take capping for granted and don't question why or what the cap actually does to you. If this happened in real life and it wasn't a made up scenario eventually the human race would be defeated, (but not without a fight). Even though there would be the occasional brave person who would questions the tripods authority over time freedom would be a thing of the past and nothing more. Through-out the whole book the author describes the importance of freedom, but subtly. The passage above is an example of this.