Books
Like everything else in Mattie's life, books are complicated. On one hand, they represent all that Mattie can't have in Eagle Bay: adventure, the greater world, and what life is not really like. Th...
Daisy and Baldwin
Few women enjoy being compared to a cow, but we just have to say that Daisy is kind of like Mamma Gokey. Figuratively, Shmoopsters, not literally. Sheesh. Just like Daisy breaks down fences to be w...
The Bear
When Mattie visits Minnie after the birth of Minnie's twins, she thinks of a story her brother Lawton told her about a bear. It goes a little something like this:Louis had caught a bear in one of h...
The Robin
Okay, this one's almost too easy. Mattie is at her mother's grave considering everything that's tying her to home, remembering her mother's death. And then she sees:[…] the body of a young robin...
Drowning
There is a lot of water in this novel, and while water can do a whole lot of symbolic work, it is especially important to note that water is often tied to women's sexuality in literature. And there...