41 pages • 1 hour read
Raven LeilaniLuster
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A 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
Mirrors
Throughout the novel, mirrors represent a confrontation of reality and a reflection of the past. For Edie, her own reflection reminds her of her mother as “when I get up in the morning, I look in the mirror and I see only my mother’s face” (68). As a reflection of her mother, Edie confronts in the mirror the ways in which she continues her mother’s legacy of depression. The morning after she willingly accepts Eric’s beating, Edie finds “a bruise that makes the resemblance more pronounced” (69). The physical bruising on her face serves as a symbol of the emotional battering her mother endured until her death by suicide. She remembers her father and “the way he would stand before the mirror and practice his smile” (68). Her father’s performative charm reflects Edie’s own attempts to hide her true feelings of loneliness and isolation. These moments in the mirror operate as reminders of Edie’s inability to leave the past behind. It is only after accepting this reality that Edie is able to complete a self-portrait of herself and accurately portray who she is.
Laughter
Edie’s responses in moments of intense emotion involve laughter. She remembers the laughter that punctuated the moments after she returned home from her abortion at the age of 16. Despite her distress at the procedure, her mother’s death only months earlier, and her father’s quick abandonment of her, Edie recollects how “a laugh bloomed and promptly died behind my teeth. A moment in which a joyless and reflexive action of the throat gave me hope that at some point, another laugh might follow” (47-48). Even in her darkest moments, Edie understands the symbolism of hope and humanity found in laughter. Edie describes how her mother “was not a woman who laughed” (123). Edie’s mother “was disappointed to find I had inherited her ugly, glottal laugh, and encouraged me to hold it behind my hand” (124). Despite her mother’s warnings, Edie’s laughter arises unexpectedly while having sex and even when meeting Rebecca for the first time. Through laughter, she unleashes the emotions she so carefully attempts to withhold and embraces that which makes her human. In her laughter, Edie finds a path that diverges from her mother’s tragic fate.
Cigarettes
Cigarettes serve as an escape that often invite candid, intimate conversation. Upon being fired, Edie shares a cigarette with Aria outside. The two women who have previously avoided one another engage in an open conversation regarding their experiences as the only two Black women in their office. Aria confesses, “We could’ve been friends. I really needed a friend here” (79). This moment with a cigarette offers Edie the opportunity to engage in deep conversation with her foil and to reflect on the factors that contributed to their inability to connect. Similarly, Edie repeatedly smokes cigarettes with Rebecca. These moments deepen the intimacy between the two women. Although seemingly in opposition due to their individual relationships with Eric, Edie and Rebecca grow closer and more unified throughout the novel. In these moments of smoking, the women share their thoughts and feelings and find a respite from the unstable realities of their relationship with each other and with Eric.
