49 pages • 1 hour read
Morgan TaltyFire Exit
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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
Elizabeth’s Stuffed Elephant
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and death.
The symbol of Elizabeth’s stuffed elephant connects to the theme of The Enduring Strength of Family Ties. The toy was initially meant as a present for Elizabeth. Charles attempted to give it to her during the one meeting that Mary allowed between father and daughter. Elizabeth, already exhibiting signs of anxiety at an early age, became distressed and would not accept the toy. Charles, however, kept it, unwilling to let go of an object that, for him, already symbolized parental affection. The elephant thus becomes a symbol of Charles’s enduring love for Elizabeth, which distance and secrets cannot alter. That he has kept the elephant shows Charles’s unwillingness to give up hope that he and Elizabeth might have a relationship someday.
That hope carried him throughout the recovery process and helps him to maintain his sobriety: He wants to be the person that Fredrick taught him to be, and he wants to mirror for Elizabeth the type of father that Fredrick was for him. Eventually, Charles gives the elephant to his mother, Louise. Her doctors suggest that memory patients fare better when they have something to care for, and in her advancing state of dementia, Louise latches onto the idea of the elephant as her “baby.” The elephant thus comes to symbolize Charles and Louise’s love for each other: It is increasingly evident to Charles that Louise often sees this elephant as Charles as an infant. Again, the elephant represents both familial love and its enduring nature. No one in Charles’s family loses sight of the importance of familial relationships, and they all do their best to preserve and honor them.
The Penobscot Death Song
Although Charles is not Penobscot, he grew up with a Penobscot stepfather within a closely knit Penobscot community. Fredrick taught Charles practical skills, self-reflection, and empathy, and he helped Charles understand his cultural identity. Fredrick was deeply connected with Penobscot history and tradition and played an important role in tribal leadership. Charles attended reservation schools, had Penobscot friends, and was part of his community. Charles is not Penobscot by ancestry but has come to understand himself primarily through the framework of Penobscot community and masculinity.
Despite the strength of his cultural identifications, Charles has been increasingly ostracized by the Penobscot men and women he is surrounded by. Because of a public rift between Charles and his best friend, Gizos, when the boys were teenagers, Charles was shunned. When Fredrick died, his expulsion from the community was complete. However, Charles still feels connected to Penobscot culture. When Gizos’s father, Lenno, dies, Charles hears drumming and singing in the distance and immediately drives to the reservation to investigate. Although the people gathered to mourn Lenno want nothing to do with Charles, he remembers and quietly sings the Penobscot death song to himself. The song thus symbolizes Charles’s commitment to his cultural identity and relates to the theme of Cultural Heritage, Identity, and Belonging. To Charles, singing this song is a way to honor Lenno and the Penobscot Nation; that he is honoring a man who was partially responsible for his ostracization merely underscores the depth of his identification with the culture. Additionally, it helps him preserve Fredrick’s legacy and keep Fredrick’s culture and history alive.
Surveillance
Since Charles spends a great deal of time observing Elizabeth from afar, surveillance becomes one of the novel’s key motifs. It was Mary who insisted that Charles’s identity remain a secret from their daughter, and her decision has always been a source of pain and unhappiness for Charles. Because he has been cut entirely out of her life, the only way to maintain some semblance of a connection is by watching Elizabeth in secret. The motif of surveillance helps the author explore The Psychological Impact of Secrets, in that Charles’s fixation with watching Elizabeth is a source of solace, sadness, and worry. Because he gleans only small bits of information about her life from watching her, Charles realizes that he is not, and never has been, part of her life. This quiet form of observation highlights the alienation he feels from his own family, as he is forced to watch his daughter’s life unfold without being allowed to actively participate in it. That knowledge eats away at him, in part because he knows from his childhood with Fredrick what it is like to have a caring and supportive father. That he cannot give this gift to his daughter because of Mary’s secret has been at the heart of both his alcohol use disorder and his lifelong battle with unhappiness.
The motif of surveillance also supports the theme of The Enduring Strength of Family Ties. Charles never loses hope that he will forge a relationship with his daughter, and he never loses sight of their connection. Through his surveillance, Charles comes to understand that Elizabeth is in some kind of emotional distress. The realization that Elizabeth is suffering further deepens Charles’s sense of responsibility to her. While Charles is determined to step in and be the father he feels he should have been all along, his position as an outsider prevents him from offering the support that Elizabeth needs. Surveillance here shifts from passive observation to active concern, as Charles understands that the secrets that have been kept from Elizabeth are harming her in ways that he may have been unable to prevent but can now seek to remedy.
