60 pages • 2 hours read
Catherine MarshallChristy
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1967A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Cabins and Homes
Content Warning: This section makes references to sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, and addiction.
One of the symbols that is present throughout Christy is that of cabins and homes, specifically about the residents of the Cove. Whenever Catherine Marshall portrays Christy as visiting a family in the Cove, she goes into a detailed description of the family’s cabin—its sights, sounds, and smells, and often a portrayal of its setting as well. The symbol of cabins functions as a means of describing the character traits of the new people Christy is encountering. The unique characteristics of the cabin symbolize certain aspects of the nature of its inhabitants. For example, Miss Alice’s home is simple, proper, and warm, just as she is, and Doctor MacNeill’s cabin is practical and functional but also mysterious, with a secret room and connections to a long and hidden backstory.
This dynamic especially holds true for the mountain folk whom Christy visits. The squalor she sees at the O’Teale cabin mirrors the social conditions she encounters inside, where the family’s disabled son is kept in a pen; the Spencer cabin is marked by light, homeliness, and music, just like Fairlight and her family; and the Taylor cabin is set in a forbidding locale, hinting at the dangers posed by Bird’s-Eye and Lundy. In each case, then, the family’s cabin portrays important points about the inhabitants’ characteristics.
Songs and Music
Songs and music serve together as a motif underscoring the theme of Cultural Understanding as a Key to Personal Connection. The power of song is first illustrated to Christy early in her work as a teacher. She struggles to make connections with her students and understand the peculiarities of the local culture until she allows the children to share some of their favorite songs with her during the music segment of the school day. This provides a first opening for her to establish deep personal connections with the students and to gain insight into their cultural values.
The motif of songs and music is also seen in David’s ministry, as he brings his ukelele with him on pastoral visitations to his parishioners’ cabins. As an outsider, he also struggles to make connections in the cross-cultural context of the Cove, but a love for music is something that both he and the other residents share. Even when they don’t truly understand him, nor he them, they can come together through the power of song, strumming on their stringed instruments and sharing the old folk songs of the mountain people. As such, songs become an important means for both Christy and David to build cultural bridges and make personal connections to the people around them.
Secrets
The motif of secrets ties in with several themes, including both Faith Amid Suffering and Loss and Cultural Understanding as a Key to Personal Understanding. Part of Christy’s journey of understanding the people around her is shaped by the gradual revelation of secrets which, little by little, show why the people live and act the way they do. Some of these secrets have to do with other characters’ backstories, and Miss Alice and Doctor MacNeill are most important here. Miss Alice does not actively try to hide her painful backstory; she merely bides her time until the moment is right. The keeping of a secret is thus not an intentional act of obfuscation in Miss Alice’s case, but its revelation is nonetheless instructive, bringing a moment of enlightenment for Christy. It helps to explain Miss Alice’s characteristic philosophy of seeking transformation through the experience of the love of God because that is precisely where she experienced healing and transformation in her own life.
In Doctor MacNeill’s case, his secrets are more intentionally kept, as he keeps the details of his painful backstory close to his chest and even maintains a secret room in his cabin. Although his secrecy is more intentional than Miss Alice’s, it is not kept maliciously. He eventually lets Christy in on those secrets, which also help her to understand his journey of faith, suffering, and loss. Other secrets abound in the novel, including one that drives the plot to its climax: the question of who shot Tom McHone. The answer to that question—Lundy Taylor—brings Christy to a deeper understanding of why the community had reacted to the tragedy as it had. That cultural understanding enabled her to see Bird’s-Eye Taylor in a new light and opened the door for reconciliation in the mountain community. Secrets, when revealed, thus lead to deeper understanding and opportunities for healing from suffering and loss.
