56 pages • 1 hour read
Sharon CreechThe Great Unexpected
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2012A 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
Rooks Orchard
This setting, located in Ireland, is a motif that helps to illuminate the Compatibility of Reality and Fantasy. When Naomi learns she’s going to Ireland, she thinks of how “[i]t [is] full of fairies and elves that could lure you down deep, dark holes. There [are] ogres who chopped off the heads of a dozen men in a single stroke, and giants who [catch] thunderbolts” (167). In Rooks Orchard, entities such as fairies and evil spirits are believed to be real, contradicting the belief that such creatures only exist in fictional or fantasy worlds. Sybil and Miss Pilpenny accept their reality, and Miss Pilpenny tells Lizzie that the fairy ring in the orchard is “as real as ever a fairy ring was” (183). Lizzie remembers her mother, Margaret, warning her of the “terrible fates” that await those who disturb a fairy ring. When the girls learn that Finn died the day after digging in the ring, and Nula and Naomi’s home burns down after Naomi disturbs the ring, the “story” seems to be true. Further, the man whom Mr. Dingle asks to appraise the gold found in Finn’s trunk will not even touch the coin once he sees “the mark of fairy gold” (224) on it. When the girls see the Crooked Bridge Finn described, they are surprised because “[i]t doesn’t make any sense” (184). They remember what Finn said about the evil spirits and begin to feel differently about the possibility that things that seem fictitious or don’t “make sense” can actually be real.
The unfamiliar combination of adults who believe in fairy rings, ghosts, and the like produces some confusion for the girls, who have been taught that such things simply cannot be. Lizzie begins to feel “mixed up,” and the girls constantly ask themselves and each other if the things they are experiencing are real or not. It is the setting and the stranger-than-fiction events that take place there that prompt her wondering. Naomi isn’t even sure that things she sees with her own eyes in Rooks Orchard are real, questioning the nature of reality itself, and she asks Lizzie, “What is ‘real’?” (190). Naomi doesn’t mention seeing Finn in the shadows because he shouldn’t be there, according to all she’s learned about the nature of reality. Further, Sybil has a wild rook that visits her, to whom she speaks and gives instructions, as though she were a fairy tale princess with animal friends, like Cinderella. Details like these seem commonplace in Rooks Orchard, proving that what is often associated with fantasy can actually be part of reality.
Blackbird Tree
Blackbird Tree symbolizes a completely different worldview, as a place where children can enjoy fantasy and whimsy but must learn to accept the reality espoused by adults. When Naomi was very young, she told Nula she “couldn’t go to school because [she] had turned into a fairy” (27) and that she was planning to move to a flower to live. Naomi did not argue with her at the time, showing that the young child’s imagination was acceptable, perhaps even considered to be endearing. However, as Naomi grows older, such fantasies become less tolerable to her guardians. When Naomi announced that she would become a Pteranodon by wishing it, like the children in her books, Nula tells her, “I’m sorry, but you won’t. You can wish it, but you will not be able to turn into a pteranodon” (70). When Naomi found that Nula was right, everything around her seemed to change in her view. She began to lose her sense of possibility, and the world became less exciting and bleaker because of it. However, this is part of what it means to “grow up” in her community: letting go of childhood fantasies and accepting the world’s realities. This is why Nula corrects Naomi, telling her not to call Hazel Wiggins “Witch Wiggins,” even though the woman looks like a storybook witch and her moods can affect the electricity and weather. When Finn tells the girls about the Crooked Bridge, Naomi says she doesn’t believe in evil spirits, though she still fears the ghosts that are rumored to roam Black Dog Night Hill. She and Lizzie are at an age where the transition from childhood to adulthood begins, and community expectations seem designed to compel them to adjust their view of the world. Even the names of the two settings mimic their communities’ views of reality; whimsical and imaginative possibilities abound in the romantically named Rooks Orchard, while reality is much plainer and more banal in the mundanely named Blackbird Tree. Though the denotations of the place names are quite similar, their connotations are very different.
Trunks
The trunks filled with characters’ belongings illuminate the theme of Unexpected Good Fortune. Naomi’s experiences and lack of perspective, suggested by her inability to be calmed by going to the moon, have taught her that unexpected events are always bad. Thus, she fears that her parents’ trunks will unleash frightening things, just like she feared with the donkey in Joe’s story, and this is compounded by her childhood belief that anything can be a story, including her own life. She dreamed that “it was [her] parents in the trunks, shrunken and clawing to get out” (123). However, once she, Lizzie, and Nula open the trunks, which Nula only has because Naomi’s parents died, they find things that remind them of tragedy but also symbolize the possibility of and actually help lead them to unexpected good fortune as well. Naomi’s mother died unexpectedly when Naomi was a baby, prompting her father to move the two of them to Blackbird Tree; here, Naomi meets Nula and Joe, who become her guardians, and her best friend, Lizzie. Naomi’s father’s death is unexpected and sad, but it leads Naomi to her beloved Nula and Joe, which is extremely good fortune to them, and they keep her parents’ trunks for her.
The motif also highlights the theme concerning The Interconnectedness of Lives. Andrew Deane’s trunk contains a photograph that links Naomi to Lizzie’s mother, which is wonderful to Lizzie. The iron rooks in Nula’s trunk link her to Margaret Scatterding, Lizzie’s mother, leading to the discovery of her friendship with Naomi’s mother, Mary, as well as Mary’s connection to Mr. Farley. Bad things happen unexpectedly, like Naomi getting attacked by the dog, but this leads to so many good things. If Naomi’s parents hadn’t died, leaving their trunks behind, she would never have met Nula or Lizzie, moved to Ireland with Nula, or inherited Rooks Orchard from Sybil. The trunks, containing the detritus of characters’ lives, help them to recognize that unexpected events bring both bad and good and help to uncover the web of connections among the characters, connections that ultimately lead to more good fortune.
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By Sharon Creech
