39 pages • 1 hour read
Susan Carol McCarthyLay That Trumpet in Our Hands
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2002A 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
Snakes
The most prominent motif in the novel is snakes. They or their images appear repeatedly in the book. The snakes have different meanings at differing times. For example, when Ren and his friend catch snakes to have races, they are a simple and natural source of joy to the boys; no one fears them. At one point, Vaylie sends Reesa a postcard with a picture of a viper on it, having learned that rattlesnakes are a kind of viper. This postcard foreshadows the rattlesnake that corners Maybelle, Vaylie’s great-aunt, in the post office. Though the snake is evil to Maybelle, who fears the snake, to Ren the snake is just one of God’s creatures that has lost its way. After he captures the snake, he releases it into the wild.
Unlike the benign snake imagery described above, the water moccasin that Warren and Robert encounter after leaving the Klan’s headquarters stands for the dangerous, deadly poison and hatred of the Klan. When Reesa says that the Klan members can shed their skin but not their nature, she is clearly using the snake, as the Bible does, as a symbol of evil and the fallen nature of man.
Baseball
Baseball is another motif that weaves amongst the details of the novel. When he was alive, baseball was Marvin’s favorite activity, he taught Ren how to play, and Reesa has strong memories of their playing the game together. Marvin uses baseball as a metaphor for life; this metaphor resonates deeply with the theme of everyday spirituality because Marvin used the specific roles of different players in the game as a way to understand the relationships between religious beings like God, Jesus Christ, and St. Peter.
When the McMahons’ friends gather around Sal’s television to watch Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers play the New York giants for the pennant, they appear to have a silent agreement that it is really Marvin they are cheering for. The Dodgers, who are criticized by racists because they have a Black player on the team, was Marvin’s favorite team. When the Dodgers lose, the community watching grieves, reminded of the loss of Marvin to a violent death at the hands of racist Klansmen.
Orange Groves
The orange groves are an important and complex symbol. The orange groves that are owned and run by Warren McMahon are beautiful and bursting with fragrance and life. They produce thirst-quenching juice that is the source of the family’s income. These groves are the setting of the bee parable Marvin relates to Reesa; in the orange groves, the bee obtained his stripes and wings, one from an abuser and one from a savior. The grove is the place where the bee suffers, but it is also where the bee receives its salvation from the angels.
The Casselton groves serve, however, as a dark and evil place. The community knows that the Klan takes their victims to these groves to beat or to kill them. The life-giving properties of the trees are absent in these groves as the leafy cover shield abusers from view, allowing them to do harm and shielding the violence from the eyes of any witnesses.
