49 pages • 1 hour read
Adrienne BrodeurLittle Monsters
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A 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
Seahorse
The seahorse that Adam discovers while he packs up his office represents Family Dynamics and Secrets. He obtained the seahorse at the benefit where he met Steph’s then-teenage mother and “kept it as a reminder of his greatest regret, a drunken night almost four decades ago, the only time he’d cheated on Emily” (179). He crushes it, destroying the relic of his sin.
Abby prepares a nursery for Reid, decorating the walls with sea life, including seahorses. In this way, she unintentionally reclaims the seahorse and transforms it from a symbol of Adam’s unspoken adultery to that of open maternal love. The changing meaning of the seahorse shows a shift from a family burdened by secrecy to one that is loving and whole.
Ken’s Model
As Little Monsters opens, Ken closes on his deal to build an innovative high-end senior living center on the Cape. His small-scale model of the development symbolizes Ambition as a Key Character Trait. He stresses that the concept the model represents will “pave the way for his political aspirations” (13), supplying the wealth needed to run his campaign in 2018. The model also epitomizes Ken’s search for his father’s favor. Ken imagines that Adam will respect and like not just the model but the actual condo Ken will give him.
Adam recognizes his son’s need for approval. He ponders where the model would go in his house, “sure that Ken would expect it to be prominently displayed” (273). Adam momentarily sees his son as “an earnest and vulnerable boy” (274). Similarly, Jenny sees in the model the “old Ken, the sweet Ken, the vulnerable Ken” that she married (186).
While Ken looks to the development to make himself “untouchable” (15), his ambitions fail, with Adam disapproving of the condo. The model is a sign of Ken’s fragility— a small prototype of the man he wants to be, a politician with a perfect family and model life.
Little Monster
Abby’s masterpiece Little Monster represents how Abby has reclaimed agency and control of her own narrative. It announces Abby’s pregnancy and her power as a creative force. It also indicts her brother’s molestation and father’s refusal to see it, stressing the pain inflicted by Toxic Patriarchy. The work echoes George’s claim that “shame” and “childhood trauma” are “part of the legacy of the patriarchy” and casts Ken as a little monster (158).
The painting highlights how the little monster could have been stopped, pushing an overdue conversation with Adam. Revising a common adage that “boys will be boys,” the painting returns Abby’s voice and forces her father to look at her wounds. Like Abby, Little Monster has been wounded and repaired, a mending that Jenny will make permanent. While patriarchy endures, its wounds can heal, even if they remain scars.
