Throughout Where the Crawdads Sing, there is a mostly unspoken realization by those few who wish to be part of Catherine Danielle Clark’s (Daisy Edgar-Jones) life that if they want to stay a part of it, they will have to understand that she rarely leaves her “perch.” One that exists deep within the marsh of Barkley Cove (a not-real place in North Carolina). Hence her derisive nickname “Marsh Girl.” Her real nickname, however, is Kya. And it’s one that her devoted suitor, Tate (Taylor John Smith), abides by whenever he comes to visit her.
She exists almost as a nymph-like creature, emerging from the woods and making herself visible solely to those she wishes to be seen by. It’s almost like every man’s fantasy. “Possessing” a secret girl for his eyes only in the remote recesses away from anyone else. Having learned the methods of hiding and subterfuge from predator and prey alike throughout her existence in Nature, Kya has mastered the art of reclusivity better than anyone living in a hoarder’s apartment or Norma Desmond-esque mansion. And both of the men who end up impinging on her true love, Mamma Natura, are keenly aware that this woman is a “wild creature” herself, who can never truly function “out there” in “real civilization.” We won’t get into the undercutting misogyny of that belief.
In any case, it’s part of the reason why Tate feels he needs to “let her go” despite declaring that he’ll return to their spot on the beach on the Fourth of July, during the summer after he’s “gotten his feet wet in” the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Turns out, the marsh waters might be more pleasant. But by the time Tate comes to understand that, it’s too late, and Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson) has already swooped in. Although it’s clear from the outset that his intentions are impure at best and nefarious at worst, Kya can’t seem to take into account what her father told her many years ago about not trusting anybody but herself. She’s been alone for so long since Tate left that suddenly the attention and the company feels nice. Like when a blue heron bird finally dips its feet into water upon landing.
As for the bird imagery that’s rife throughout the film and book, it obviously symbolizes, on the one hand, Kya’s desire to be free. To come and go as she pleases without her wings being clipped. Then there is the flip side of that imagery, with the series of feathers plucked (or “picked up”) and presented to Kya by Tate. That “plucking” representing a violation, of sorts, of Kya’s own person (for the marsh and its animal kingdom is like an extension of herself). But in contrast to Chase, Tate always knew better than to try to change Kya in any way, let alone make her feel like “trash” as Chase does (particularly when he takes her on a picnic and tries to pounce on her, this being some foreshadowing for his eventual full-on rape attempt). It is after he has ingratiated himself into her heart that Chase calls out how he knows Kya can never really leave the marsh, an emblem of her fringe living by literally being located on the fringe of the rivers and lakes. By the same token, he tells her she needs to start learning how to overcome her unique form of agoraphobia (especially if she’s going to be his wife, as he so boldly assumes). For, technically, most agoraphobics don’t go outside at all, whereas Kya is constantly outdoors—it’s just a matter of the geographical location of that outside world.
“In town” is hardly a safe space, as she learned from a young age when she tried to attend school there. She didn’t last through the day amid all the teasing and judgment. For one of the key motifs of Where the Crawdads Sing is how “the village” must constantly find a scapegoat in the form of an outsider. Anyone who is “other” will do. And since Kya is what Mean Girls’ Regina George would call a “home-schooled jungle freak,” it isn’t difficult for the other kids to single her out in what is yet another classic case of bourgeois ostracism. For Kya is too poor to even afford shoes of her own, showing up to the classroom with dirty, bare feet. The first immediate source of ostracism for “pack animals” in the human kingdom being the sight of any telltale signs of not adhering to the higher (or at least middle) echelons of capitalism.
Thus, Kya can hardly be blamed for her retreat back into Nature, where, at the minimum, there are no fake “rules” that mitigate the way things actually are. Another Mean Girls character, Cady Heron, encounters a similar plight, albeit with far more willingness to learn “how to deal.” As she puts it, “Girl World had a lot of rules” and “I knew how this would be settled in the animal world. But this was Girl World.” Later, she adds, “In Girl World, all the fighting had to be sneaky.” Not to say that Nature isn’t filled with its own quiet cunning and guile. That’s why the “sneaky fucker” strategy is mentioned in Delia Owens’ novel. A method employed by “rogue” male seals seeking to infiltrate another dominant male’s “polygamist colony” by entering the harem when the alpha is distracted.
But Tate doesn’t stay distracted for long. Nor does Kya, for that matter, as she comes to fathom the depths of Chase’s dastardly character. Enough to know that it’s turning into a matter of kill or be killed. “You didn’t see me here,” croons Taylor Swift on the film’s signature song, “Carolina,” alluding to the idea that Kya’s alibi on the night of Chase’s death was seemingly legit. But then adding, “No you never did see me here” to emphasize that Kya’s true self was always invisible to the townspeople—and that they were determined to see her as a reflection of their own savagery. Buried not so deep down “behind shirts, ties and marriages” (as MARINA once said). In opposition to their false airs of “civility,” Kya is free of artifice, knowing better than to count on anyone but herself after learning a little something, previously touted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, called self-reliance.
A critic named Richard Chase said of that famed essay, when framed against the messaging of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, “Death—spiritual, emotional, physical—is the price of self-reliance when it is pushed to the point of solipsism, where the world has no existence apart from the all-sufficient self.” This is clearly the point Kya has reached, which is part of why she lets her guard down for Chase despite sign after sign of his malicious intent.
She seems to be at odds with the revelation that craving companionship is almost as bad as knowing there’s really no one out there worth opening up to (unless, in her case, you’re fortunate enough to find one person—Tate). Worth the risk of making the heart vulnerable, only to endure being inevitably disappointed in one way or another. With Chase, that disappointment comes in manifold forms, merely reinforcing her initial mistrust of humanity. Ergo, her “agoraphobia.” Sticking to the rivers and the lakes that she’s used to—where no human can harm her. Lest they invoke her urge to harm them… And, irrefutably, there are so many who can relate to Kya’s staunch embodiment of guardedness. Protecting herself from emotional harm as much as physical.
