A Rip in Heaven

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2004

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-Afterword

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Childlike Imagery and Moments of Maturity

Cummins frequently uses imagery of childlike behavior to characterize Tom and others throughout the book. Normally such childlike behavior is described in moments of heightened trauma or anxiety for the character. For instance, Tom cries and Kay holds and comforts him, “as she had when he was a newborn baby,” when they first meet in the ambulance after the murders (82). Tom also rubs his sleeve, a childhood habit, as he is driven to the police station.

Yet in other moments, Cummins deliberately describes characters, particularly Tom and Tink, as exhibiting new behaviors and uncharacteristic levels of maturity and confidence. These moments come as the characters are forced to mature rapidly in response to crisis and trauma. For example, Tink is portrayed as having newfound responsibilities and privileges as she displays mature, parental behavior while comforting Jamie after Tom is arrested. Tom has moments of uncharacteristic confidence and manhood as he endures his police interrogations, and Gene marvels at how much Tom has matured as they pack up to return to Maryland.

Cummins constantly shifts between childlike and adultlike motifs as the story makes turn after turn. She uses these alternating motifs to illustrate the transition from childhood to adulthood and to explore how this critical transition becomes confused and altered due to the murders.

Life-Changing, Pivotal Moments

A recurring motif throughout the book is represented by sudden moments when life, and the plot, changes drastically, often due to a stranger’s actions. The most obvious example is when Gray and the other assailants grab Julie, Robin, and Tom, and rape and murder Julie and Robin. This event ends Julie and Robin’s lives and irrevocably changes Tom’s for the worse. Other pivotal moments in the book also have a profound effect on Tom, such as when he unexpectedly fails the polygraph test, which instantly changes his world. The police suddenly change from treating him with sympathy and respect to lying to and abusing him, considering him their primary suspect.

Other examples represent pivotal moments of positive change, such as when Frank Fabbri tells Tom that he believes him in the interrogation room. This moment, incited by a complete stranger at the time, causes Tom to collapse into tears and gives him his first glimpse of hope since the police turned on him. Another positive, impactful moment is when a stranger offers Tom half a pack of cigarettes when he asks for just one, because he “look[s] like [he] could use the whole pack” (195). This unexpected moment of kindness completely shocks Tom’s world after being locked up, taunted, and screamed at by the police. Cummins suggests that strangers and sudden fleeting events can drastically change our lives for better or worse.

The Old Chain of Rocks Bridge and the Mississippi River

Both the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge and the Mississippi River are used as symbols for Julie throughout the story. They especially represent Julie’s creative potential and the loss of that potential, embodied most obviously by the poem that Julie painted on the bridge. However, Cummins also writes a few passages in which she expands on these symbols, at one point describing the currents of the river running “like sparks through her poetry” (26). In that same passage Cummins draws a parallel between the river’s connection to Mark Twain, William Faulkner, T. S. Eliot, and Julie. By drawing a connection between Julie and these literary giants, Cummins emphasizes the enormous creative potential that was lost when Julie died in that same river.

The bridge also represents Julie’s activism and humanitarianism, particularly through the content of the poem that she painted on the bridge. An excerpt of the poem reads, “Unite as One / We’ve got II / STOP / Killing One Another” (249). Ironically, the bridge that she loved, the place where she painted her message of universal peace and equality, is where she was raped and murdered. Yet it is important to Cummins that Julie’s love of the bridge and the river are not forgotten due to this fact.