58 pages • 1 hour read
Kirsten MillerLula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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
Mass Media
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of violence, suicide, sexual assault, enslavement, physical and emotional abuse, antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+ bias, and murder.
Mass media is a symbol of the ubiquitous presence of information in the digital age. It relates to the theme of The Information Wars and frequently serves to advance the plot. Mitch’s text bemoaning the diminished respect for white men in American culture gains him a large online following. Though Mitch is apolitical, Trump and the MAGA movement find his comments useful in advancing their narrative that America was better back in the day when white men ruled. Soon, the actor finds himself center stage with more media attention than he ever dreamed of receiving. The same conservative news sources terrorize Kevin Kelly’s parents with their constant broadcasts about a fictitious crime spree afflicting the entire country.
Social media also plays a role in the conflict among community members Troy. Lula declares her intention to ban books in town via a Facebook post. Beverly uses Facebook to find the rest of Augustus Wainwright’s descendants and organize a reunion for them. Network coverage soon follows the social media campaigns of both women. After reading Speak, Darlene Cagle feels inspired to break the silence about being gang raped in high school on Facebook, and the news instantly spreads all over town. Information and disinformation bombard the residents of Troy every hour of the day and night. As Keith Kelly says, “He felt like he’d wandered into a war zone. The territory in dispute was his brain” (166).
The Confederate Statue
The statue of Augustus Wainwright is a symbol of the Lost Cause myth and relates to the theme of Protecting Southern Small-Town Secrets. The quote below Wainwright’s statue, attributed to the general, reads, “Bow Not Before Tyrants, Fight for Your Freedom, Sacrifice All but Honor, And Die with Dignity” (91). These sentiments are the credo of the Confederate myth, but they are undercut by the reality of Wainwright’s life. The general’s fight for freedom only applied to white Southern citizens since he enslaved a large Black population of plantation workers. He also raped and impregnated many of them. He did not even die with dignity, as Isaac learns: “Letters between family members suggest he stumbled drunk into an outhouse behind a brothel and drowned in the cesspit” (152).
The battle between the myth of a glorious Confederate past and its inglorious present reality comes to a head in Troy between Lula’s support and Beverly’s. Both women intend to run for mayor, and their political activities occur in the town square under Wainwright’s gaze. His statue nearly becomes the scene of a massacre after Logan Walsh concocts a plan to shoot everyone at the Wright-Wainwright family reunion. The fictional battle to remove Wainwright’s statue in the text echoes the real movement of many Southern towns to eliminate statues of Confederate “heroes” from the town square. Through the text, Miller highlights how the Lost Cause has lost its appeal for much of the population.
The Banned Book List
The individual books that constitute Lula’s banned list symbolize a rebellion against the restrictive status quo. They speak to the theme of The Transformative Power of Books. The battle between past and future plays out in the juxtaposition between approved books’ dustjackets and banned content within them. It is also apparent in the chapter titles corresponding to approved books that are subverted by the story unfolding within each chapter.
Aside from Lula’s power struggle with Beverly over censorship, some of the books themselves create quiet revolutions in the thinking of several characters. Elijah is worried that his older brother Isaac will go to hell because he is gay. Religious teachings have indoctrinated this viewpoint in him all his life, and his parents follow the same beliefs. However, Elijah’s viewpoint changes after reading Rivals and Lovers. He is amazed to learn that reading about a gay couple doesn’t “turn” him gay. He finds the book boring rather than titillating and appeals to his parents to reconsider their rejection of his brother’s sexuality.
Another young mind changes when Beau Sykes reads Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. Because nobody in his family has told the 10-year-old boy about female biology, he is convinced that his mother might bleed to death one day from menstruation. The text helps him to understand the facts of life that prudish family members are afraid to tackle. The novel suggests that no matter how insignificant the issue might be, the banned books in Troy can help to solve the problem, illuminating necessary truths or information to the people who encounter the texts.
