55 pages • 1 hour read
Omar El AkkadAmerican War
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A 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
The Virgin of Guadalupe Statue
Throughout the novel, Sarat cares less and less about material objects or nostalgic mementos. Perhaps the only exception to this is her father's statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a Catholic title for the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is first described in Chapter 1: "By the front door, a statue from the days of Benjamin's childhood kept vigil. It was the Virgin of Guadalupe, cast in ceramic, her hands pressed against each other, her head lowered in prayer" (11). The statue is one of the few non-essential items Martina takes with her to Camp Patience and it is among the only objects Sarat hunts down in the aftermath of the camp massacre. Years later, when Sarat returns from Sugarloaf a broken woman, she mentions this to Simon: "So I went back, and you know what I took? I took Dad's old statue, the Virgin of Guadalupe; I took that turtle Marcus and I kept as a pet; I took a couple of old photos from Mama's bunk. I didn't take any clothes, didn't take any of the money Mama had saved up all her life. Not a single useful thing. Just junk" (316). To which Simon replies, "It wasn't junk. It was our past" (319).
That a virginal symbol of purity signifies Sarat's past makes sense, considering her present state as a violent terrorist. More telling is Sarat's characterization of the statue as "junk." So much of what made her childhood a happy one is gone: Her mother, her father, her sister, her innocence. Therefore, the idea of going to so much trouble to hold onto a trinket signifying that past seems ludicrous to Sarat in the present.
Emerald Creek
Emerald Creek is a ditch where the excrement from the camp's bathrooms drain, so named because of the bright green disinfectant used to clean the toilets. Sarat's incident at Emerald Creek holds enormous symbolic weight to Sarat's character arc. Falling into the ditch and becoming submerged in excrement is something of a baptism of filth for Sarat, as she takes on all the ugliness produced by the oppressed refugees at Camp Patience. Though she doesn't realize it at the time, the incident is a major turning point for the character on her way to being born again as a crusader for the Southern cause. For example, it causes her to shave her head, an act which is framed as a moment of rebirth: "Sarat observed her new face a long time. In the back of her mind swirled all manner of looming irritations—her mother's wrath, the ceaseless teasing of the children who'd seen or by now heard what she'd done. But in this moment, alone with her reflection, she felt new and impossibly light" (111).
Just as importantly, the Emerald Creek incident indirectly puts her in contact with Gaines, the man who will put on her on the path toward radicalization. It is when she tries to sneak into the infirmary, unable to face her mother after falling into a pit of excrement, that Gaines identifies Sarat as a girl willing to operate outside societal expectations.
Gaines’ Knife
In Chapter 7, Gaines gives Sarat a small folding knife: "The blade was of slightly blemished steel and smooth except at its lower end, where it turned to serrated teeth. There was a monogram etched into the handle: 'YBR'" (143). The knife is dull when Sarat receives it, but Gaines teaches her to sharpen it. Sarat asks, "How do you know when it's ready?" (143). To which Gaines responds, "It's ready when it does what you need it to do" (143). Here, the two could just as easily be talking about Sarat herself, a potential weapon of war that needs only "resistance and stress" (143) before she is ready to become Gaines' tool of insurrection and violence. However, the knife holds even more symbolic relevance later when it is revealed that Joe's real name is Yousef Bin Rashid, or "YBR." This strongly suggests that Joe groomed Gaines in much the same way Gaines grooms Sarat. The knife therefore is a symbol of inherited violence, passed down from mentor to mentee. It is Sarat who finally closes the circle, leaving the knife on Gaines' table after letting him live.
