The Magical Device Summary and Analysis

This chapter begins with a letter from Temple's mother, sent to Temple while she is visiting her aunt in Arizona. Her mother is trying to explain some basic emotional realities to her daughter. She compares machines to people, saying that people can feel while machines cannot. She compares animals to people, saying that people develop deeper relationships to each other than to animals. Why all of this? Autistics do not understand feelings between people. Temple responds with a comment that what her mother really means is that the machine is not a human so it's not good. Everyone is discouraging Temple from her machine.

When Temple finally goes to college, she becomes the resident campus lock picker, making friends this way. The college is near her former school, and Mr. Carlock encourages the machine, saying that she...