“The girl sticks to the man like a shadow. If he hops over a puddle, she hops, too. If he skips along a rail, she does the same. It is clear just by looking at them that the little girl belongs to the man, just as the man belongs to the little girl.”

The theme of Friendship and Belonging is quickly introduced in the opening chapter through the initial scene depicting the Sweep and the little girl (who is later revealed to be Nan Sparrow at a very young age). The two are clearly inseparable. Their mutual love and affection is characterized in the little girl’s imitation of the Sweep’s every movement, and by the self-evident nature of their belonging to one another.

“Every night she slept soundly, knowing that she and the Sweep would have each other forever.”

Nan’s innocent and childlike confidence that the Sweep will always and forever be a fixture in her life serves to imply the precise opposite in a deliberately unsettling example of foreshadowing. The very simplicity of this narrative statement simultaneously conveys the young girl’s unshakable faith in the stability of her tiny world just as it serves to emphasize the true fragility of her blissfully peaceful slumber. Thus, while Nan is utterly perplexed by the Sweep’s abrupt and confusing departure (which is later revealed to be caused by his death), Jonathon Auxier injects a more mature perspective by implying that absolutely nothing in this world is “forever.