We Were Liars

E. Lockhart

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2014

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Part 4, Chapters 58-63Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: "Look, a Fire"

Part 4, Chapters 58-59 Summary

Cady finally recalls that she and the Liars burned Clairmont to the ground because they were angry at the aunts for arguing over property and for trying to force Mirren, Cady, and Johnny to help them get Granddad's property. She goes to Cuddledown and talks to Johnny, who tells her as much. She now knows that the memory of Granddad with the glow of fire on his face is from the night when Clairmont burned down.

Part 4, Chapter 60 Summary

Cady now has more memories. Her mother tried to get her to write to Granddad to get her inheritance. Her mother wants her to present herself as a "well-rounded person, a credit to the family" (155). The aunts also fight over small things like tablecloths. Both Mirren and Cady's mothers ask them to ask Granddad for them.

Part 4, Chapter 61 Summary

Cady and Gat go night swimming and feel love for one another. At a birthday party for the twins, a fight breaks out over property. Granddad asks the Liars for advice about what to do with his property. He wants to fund a student center at Harvard, rather than leave anything to his family. Cady realizes he’s making a threat.

Part 4, Chapter 62 Summary

Granddad tells his three daughters that Bess thought Windermere too big for Cady's mother. Her mother says it’s fine. Granddad asks Cady's opinion. She knows that she’s supposed to make Granddad feel powerful by begging for the house from him, but she refuses and tells truth: "It's too big for us" (161).

Part 4, Chapter 63 Summary

The action takes place during summer fifteen. Cady's mother orders Cady to beg Granddad for Windermere. Cady points out that some people have nothing, and no one in the family is trying "to use their money for good. Nobody is trying to make the world a better place" (162). Cady does what her mother asks, and her Granddad agrees. But she learns soon after that he’s made the same promise to Aunt Bess.

Part 4, Chapters 58-63 Analysis

his section of the novel is as much about a clash of principles as a clash of personalities. In this section, too, the parallels to King Lear are clear. The aunts fight openly about their inheritance, and they seek to enlist their children, angering them and lighting the fuse that leads to the disaster of the burning of Clairmont, the emblem of the patriarchal family. The principles that clash are greed and altruism. The aunts are all greedy; they want property. Their children are more altruistic. They want to do good things in the world and have good values. They would prefer to lose property if in doing so they preserve their good values.