46 pages • 1 hour read
Susan CrandallWhistling Past the Graveyard
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Wishful Thinking Versus Confronting Adversity
Content Warning: This section discusses racism, racist violence, and spousal abuse.
Starla defines the idiom “whistling past the graveyard” as “when you d[o] something to keep your mind off your most worstest fear” (109). Later, when explaining the phrase to Eula, Starla adds, “[I]t’s not weak, like hidin’…it’s strong. It means you’re able to go on” (357). While Starla’s character is often defined by her seemingly heroic willingness to confront adversity, the issue is complicated by the reality of the United States in this time period. Other characters interact with this theme in varying ways, suggesting that either option isn’t always definitively correct and that it is situationally dependent.
A key part of Starla’s character and the plot is her inability to whistle past the graveyard. Taking the phrase literally, Starla admits, “But I couldn’t whistle” (109). Starla can’t avoid confronting the harm in her immediate world. Whether it’s Jimmy Sellers or the Jenkins brothers, Starla inevitably faces injustice directly, which creates unintended consequences. This headstrong reaction is often a privilege reserved for white individuals, and while she’s with Eula, her behaviors sometimes place them in harm’s way. Starla’s tendency to confront injustice is complicated by the dangers of the time period. While with Eula, Starla learns about the nuance required to navigate precarious situations.
Regarding whistling past the graveyard and Starla, the exception is Starla’s mother. With Lulu, Starla engages in wishful thinking. She romanticizes Lulu and can’t face the reality that Lulu doesn’t want to be with her until she confronts Lulu in person. Starla didn’t go to Nashville to face her uncaring mother: She went there to live with a mother who she assumed loved her. The incidental confrontation reveals that whistling past the graveyard can sometimes lead a person into a confrontation with the person or issue they were, however unconsciously, distorting or trying to avoid.
The character of Eula, like Starla, experiences growth regarding the confrontation of adversity and the nuance of navigating precarious situations. In early scenes, Eula whistles past the graveyard with Wallace. She denies the toxicity of Wallace, telling Starla, “He only tryin’ to keep me safe. He don’t mean it” (127). Eula is optimistic to a fault, leaning on wishful thinking instead of facing her abusive reality. She doesn’t need optimism or a distraction, but she must instead confront her dangerously violent husband in order to move forward. Eula carries this same optimism into her relationship with James despite the potential repercussions that come with a Black woman having a white baby. Eula’s tendency toward wishful thinking is reversed at the end of the story, displaying her character growth. She decides not to continue to run from her past but to instead face it head-on, acknowledging the truth of her relationship with Wallace and speaking to the police officer despite the repercussions.
The Impact of Racism on Individuals and Communities
The story takes place in the American South in 1963, and Crandall uses her characters to explore how racism shapes people and communities. Starla, being white, grows to better understand how racism affects the Black community throughout the novel. Eula, Wallace, and Cyrena are impacted by racism and reflect racist beliefs differently. Overall, the author uses the setting and characters to dissect the complicated effect of racism across individuals and on a larger scale.
Early on, Crandall explores the notion that racist communities produce racist people. Starla is nine and doesn’t sincerely hold overt racist beliefs—she regurgitates the racist norms when she thinks, “I am white. I am the boss of what happens here” (83). This occurs in Eula and Wallace’s home and reveals the fallibility of racism. Without the system of laws and policies, whiteness isn’t an all-powerful weapon or a trump card. Starla isn’t the boss, though she has no previous experience with this vulnerability because of her role as a white person within a racist society. Meanwhile, as a Black woman, Eula sees racism as a given. It’s a daily part of her life, and she tries to blunt its impact by not allowing herself to get upset over every racist incident. Starla doesn’t understand why the racist driver who caused their truck to crash doesn’t enrage Eula, and Eula replies, “Might as well get mad at the wind for blowin’. Some things just be what they be” (147).
At the same time, the book argues that racism doesn’t have to be prevalent, with activists like Cyrena trying to rally people and communities to combat the racist status quo and create people and communities that treat people equally. Cyrena explains, “We want Negros—all people—to have all of the same choices available as whites” (243). Yet Black people are not monolithic, so not all of the Black people in Cyrena’s community agree with her. Washington doesn’t think the activists can dislodge racism from people and communities, but her views don’t prevent her from maintaining a friendship with Cyrena.
Arguably, racism also influences Wallace’s brutality. He reenacts the violent behavior that he presumably experiences as a Black man in the South, and his actions are sometimes in direct response to Eula placing them in danger via Starla and James. Still, Eula has experienced horrible racism, and she’s not abusive. Thus, racism doesn’t excuse or explain Wallace’s behavior. Wallace is a person with agency, and he chooses to act brutally in response to the racism he has experienced, showing how a racist social system has worked against him and affected his relationships and mental wellness.
The town of the Bottom additionally interacts with this theme. Because it is the Black part of town, authorities deny it resources. The elementary school doesn’t have a playground, and the school is “so small” that the officials combined third, fourth, and fifth grade. Around the Bottom, the Jenkins brothers harass Eula, and Eula has other memories of racist violence, like when white people viciously assaulted her cousin on their way back from the carnival. Racism traumatizes Eula, but it doesn’t defeat or define her. Thus, through Starla, Eula, Cyrena, Wallace, and the Bottom, Crandall reveals how racism negatively impacts people and depletes communities.
The Complexity of Familial Relationships
In the novel, Crandall explores the idea of biological family versus found family, as well as the various forms that family can take. Starla’s longing for a conventional family spurs Starla to run away from Mississippi and find her mom in Nashville. However, Starla finds that other characters fulfill familial roles far better than her mother can, providing her with support and care and expanding Starla’s idea of family.
At the start of the story, Starla thinks of a family as a child living with their biological parents. Starla’s wish to obtain an allegedly normal family manifests when Starla glorifies Patti Lynn’s family, saying, “Patti Lynn had a real family with a sister and three brothers and lived in a big house on Magnolia Street. She even had a dog” (26). Patti Lynn represents Starla’s idealized family dynamic—biological siblings, biological parents, a large house, and a pet. Starla wants something similar for herself, stating, “Lulu was gonna be famous all right, and then she’d come back and get me and Daddy. We were gonna live in a big house in Nashville with horses and whatnot” (13). However, Lulu is not a laudable mother, and Patti Lynn’s family is imperfect. They face adversity when they discover that James is Cathy’s baby, and they don’t deal with it in a loving, holistic way.
The book instead proposes that the true definition of family lies in the confrontation of hardship and the offering of love and support. Porter, Starla, and Eula become a family because they stick by one another. Porter doesn’t continue to work on the oil rig. He moves back to Cayuga Springs to permanently live with Starla, and neither he nor Starla abandon Eula. Eula doesn’t leave them, even when Starla encourages her to run and avoid an encounter with the sheriff. Lulu is not a part of Starla’s new family unit. About Lulu, Eula says, “[S]he a disappointed and selfish woman, ugly and hateful inside” (338). Preoccupied with her own needs and failings, Lulu can’t be there for Starla.
Eula provides an applicable definition of family when she tells Starla, “We family; they ain’t all about blood, you know. Families is people lookin’ out after each other, not hidin’ behind secrets” (483). Eula didn’t always have such a view of family. Earlier, she wanted to make a family with Wallace—an impossible task because Wallace didn’t look after her; he tormented her. Like Starla, Eula had to adjust her definition of a family. She had to find people who cared about her, like Starla and Cyrena.
