48 pages • 1 hour read
Billie LettsWhere the Heart Is
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1995A 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
Seven
Novalee fears the number seven because many of her life’s tragedies are associated with sevens. The first bad thing was that her mother abandoned her when she turned seven. In seventh grade, her best friend was arrested. She got stabbed while working in a diner and had to have seventy-seven stitches. When she was seven months pregnant, her boyfriend abandoned her at a Walmart. Sevens continue to bring bad luck to Novalee throughout the novel. However, sevens also become symbolic of good luck. For example, if Novalee had not been abandoned in Sequoyah, Oklahoma by Willy Jack, she would never have met Sister Husband, Lexie, or Forney. Seven is also the number of rings it takes for Forney to answer Novalee’s final phone call, and Americus’s seventh year of life brings Willy Jack back to Novalee, allowing her to find closure in that relationship.
Walmart
Walmart is a central motif that highlights several of the novel’s themes. It is where Willy Jack abandons Novalee and where she makes her home for the next two months, beginning her time in Sequoyah. Americus becomes known as the “Walmart baby” (98) after her birth inside the store. Sam Walton himself, the owner of Walmart, comes to meet Novalee and offers her a job. Novalee works at Walmart for the entirety of the rest of the novel. In these ways, Walmart becomes the backdrop of her story. This discount store has a reputation, rightly or not, for running small mom-and-pop shops out of business in places like Sequoyah while providing minimum wage jobs for underserved communities. Walmart is a giant in a small town that overshadows everyone’s lives, and after the tornado, Walmart just picks up and moves to another town miles away with only small consideration for the employees who do not want to move away from their families and friends. In this way, Walmart becomes a motif for the theme of Motherhood: Biological or Otherwise as it shelters and provides for Novalee, first when she lives there and later when she works there. It also relates to the theme Reliability in Fatherhood, as Walmart is where Novalee’s relationship with Moses begins and where Forney’s relationship with Americus begins.
Buckeye Tree
Benny Goodluck gives Novalee a buckeye tree on her first day in Sequoyah. Because Novalee does not have a place to live, she keeps the tree in a locker in the storage room at Walmart and takes it to the park every few days to allow it sunlight. However, the tree starts to die, and Novalee goes to the library to research how to save it. There, she meets Forney Hull for the first time. In that moment, this tree takes on new significance as it begins to symbolize home for Novalee. This continues when she takes the tree to Sister Husband’s home and plants it in the front yard. After the tornado, the buckeye tree is the only thing still standing, reminding Novalee of what Benny told her when he first gifted her the tree: “it’s lucky…helps you find your way home if you get lost” (251). Novalee then realizes that she is home despite losing Sister Husband, her home, and the Walmart where Americus was born in the storm.
Belief Systems
Religion is introduced early in the novel when Novalee meets Sister Husband. Sister Husband speaks to Novalee about the Bible and explains that she only gives people a chapter at a time—“that way, folks can deal with their confusion as it comes” (19). This statement underscores how complicated religion can be for most people and expresses Sister Husband’s beliefs without pushing them on others. Letts shows the opposite side of this when Americus is kidnapped by a couple of religious fanatics who feel that Americus’s birth is a sin because of Novalee’s unmarried status. In presenting these two differing forms of belief, Letts creates a motif of religion that highlights the themes of the novel. Religion expresses how a person’s beliefs can shape how they see the world, including their Definition of Home and Family. Throughout the novel, Novalee is lost, sometimes homeless, and often unsure of what might come next. She also possesses a superstitious belief that sevens are bad luck, when in reality they are also good luck. Even Lexie has a belief that her children need a good father, and this belief leads to her having more children and a traumatic episode for her and her older kids. It also leads her to a good man with whom she can build a family. In the end, both Lexie and Novalee believe in themselves, their children, and the people they have surrounded themselves. Through these beliefs, they eventually discover that what they always wanted is right in front of them. Home is not a physical place, but the people inside those four walls.
