47 pages • 1 hour read
Katherine ArdenSmall Spaces
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A 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
Halloween
The novel takes place a few days before Halloween, and multiple references are made to the holiday and the local decorations displayed for the event. In terms of the book’s themes, Halloween relates to Denying Loss, specifically the loss of departed loved ones.
In a general sense, Halloween stands as a symbol of all things scary and spooky. Pumpkins and scarecrows figure prominently in the decorative motifs for this holiday. However, the author consciously draws on the symbolism of this holiday from a much older context. Beth writes:
Jonathan was eaten up with guilt. When his mother ordered him to go out, he went. It was raining, he told me later. Very softly: a rain like cold tears […] It was nearly Samhain, which, in the Old Country, marked the turning of the year. (33)
Samhain is the Celtic name for Halloween. It once marked the dividing line between the old year and the new. According to pagan lore, this is the one night of the year when the veil between worlds is the thinnest, and the dead can communicate with the living. This mythology was co-opted by the Christian church and can still be seen in the Hispanic celebration of Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) when people leave gifts of food for departed relatives and build small altars for them. With lost loved ones on everybody’s mind at this time of year, small wonder that Halloween would be the smiling man’s most opportune time to strike a deal.
Scarecrows
Scarecrows are a ubiquitous image in the novel. They pop up and disappear. Aside from their role of frightening children in a horror story, they are a symbol that relates to the theme of Clinging to the Past. The past no longer exists except in memory and imagination. However, multiple characters in the novel seek to cling to theirs. Not only is this trait futile, but it is also destructive. Scarecrows are designed to look like human beings to frighten away birds, but they are lifeless figures. After the smiling man brings Caleb back from the dead, his behavior mimics a scarecrow’s. Beth notices a vacancy in his eyes. He has also lost the memory of what happened to him the night he disappeared.
Caleb seems to have lost the ability to feel emotion. While trying to lure Brian to join the others, Phil says all the once-human scarecrows share this characteristic: “A hole in Phil’s straw mouth opened. A voice spoke like the wind in the wheat in summer. ‘Come down,’ breathed Phil. ‘Come down and join us. It’s nice. You’ll like it. You live forever and you’ll never be sad again’” (180). The entire purpose of clinging to the past is to avoid the pain of the present. Becoming a scarecrow seems to offer a way out of this dilemma. Eternal life without emotion would certainly be a remedy to cure past sorrows. However, living eternally as a hollow being made of straw precludes all possibility of future joy too.
The Corn Maze
The smiling man rules his empire of straw from the center of the corn maze. The maze itself symbolizes confusion and relates to the theme of The Price of Desperation. Walking through a maze is not merely disorienting but can lead to a sense of panic and the need to escape. Desperation is the emotion that the smiling man exploits to capture souls. When people are desperate, they are vulnerable to anyone offering a way out of their problem. Even Ollie isn’t immune to panic in the maze when she is separated from Brian and Coco:
Ollie was in a panic by then, alone, sobbing for air, stuck in the maze. She would never get out and all around her were the scarecrows with their snatching rake hands just waiting for the night to grab her and put her on a stake and make her a scarecrow forever (190).
Creating a sense of disorientation and confusion not only leads to desperation, but it leads to irrational conclusions. The smiling man’s victims aren’t thinking clearly when they agree to his terms. In the maze, Ollie nearly succumbs to the same terror until she hears her mother’s watch beeping a reminder not to panic. While mazes are designed to disorient, they all contain an entrance and an exit. Once Ollie quiets her desperation and remembers this fact, she is able to defeat the smiling man and lead her friends to safety.
Related Titles
By Katherine Arden
