44 pages • 1 hour read
Adrienne YoungThe Unmaking of June Farrow
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
Locket Watch
An important family heirloom, the locket watch is described as a unique piece of jewelry. With a mother-of-pearl watch face, it “[is] set with not two hands, but four, and each of them varie[s] in length. It [is] a strange piece of jewelry that most closely resemble[s] a watch […] The hands never move[], two of them perpetually stuck on the one” (10).
The watch is eventually revealed to be the mechanism by which the Farrow women determine where to travel in time. June eventually realizes that Birdie (Annie) must have set the watch to 1951. The locket watch becomes a symbol of the weight of time. As June describes, “The locket watch around my neck was growing heavier by the day, a tightening noose that felt more and more like a ticking clock” (165). The locket watch symbolizes the family curse and its negative impact on the women in the novel. The locket watch is also a physical object that anchors June in time. Solid metal, it contrasts with the idea of fading and unraveling that the Farrow curse entails, even as it relates to the curse’s function.
Flowers
The Farrow family has owned a flower farm for generations, and flowers are a significant part of their life and livelihood. In the novel, they are described as specific and unique and supersede a decorative setting element. For instance, June is intimately familiar with the process of pruning and seems to feel most centered when working with flowers: “Bright golden pollen covered the knuckles of my worn leather gloves as I found the end of the flower stalks by memory. One by one, I worked down the groupings of leaves until I reached the place to cut” (14).
This passage connects flowers to memory. When June feels untethered from memory and identity, she weeds the garden on the Stone farm. Young connects flowers to the lineage and the curse: “My great-great-grandmother Esther had never come clean about where she’d gotten those seeds, though people in Jasper had their guesses, including some local lore that she’d made a deal with demons” (15). The 1951 farm also has modern irrigation techniques.
Flowers are a common thread among Farrow women and highlight elements that remain the same across time. For example, the scene at the Midsummer Faire in 1951 includes detailed descriptions of flowers and is similar to June’s memories of 2023 Jasper. Finally, flowers are connected with time: When the door appears to June near the conclusion of the novel, when she decides to stay with Eamon and Annie, it is surrounded by flowers.
Photographs
Photographs are important to the plot. Recognizing Susanna in the photo with Nathaniel Rutherford catalyzes events in the novel, as it propels June to seek answers about her mother and eventually go through the door. When she arrives in the past, photographs continue to appear. They indicate the fraying of time. June recognizes herself in a photo with Eamon and recognizes Esther from photographs she’d seen in 2023.
Photos take on additional significance through simile and their connection to memory. For example, June compares her former perception of her daughter to a blurry image. As she progresses toward knowing and remembering her daughter, she notes, “I’d only caught glimpses of her before, like a photograph taken out of focus. But now I could see her. Really see her” (137). Additionally, June has a recurring memory of a photo being taken, a cue that helps her remember murdering Nathaniel.
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By Adrienne Young
