54 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer LongoWhat I Carry
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A 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
Blackbirds
Longo uses blackbirds to symbolize the novel’s protagonist. Joellen, Muiriel’s social worker and the person who has known her best and longest at the start of the novel, calls her Blackbird—a nickname that reflects her motivation, personality, and habits. The bird’s flight connects to Muiriel’s great desire for freedom. Despite her apprehension about aging out of the foster care system, she longs for the day she will be “[f]inally free to live and take care of [herself] in the wilderness of the wide world” (12). Muiriel also shares a blackbird’s penchant for collecting items that catch their fancy. In Chapter 14, she refers to the pillowcase full of cherished mementos she has gathered over the years as her “blackbird treasure bag” (189). The objects in this collection offer further insight into the protagonist’s character. For example, the thimble represents her efforts to protect herself from being hurt, and the Fruit Stripe gum demonstrates her longing for consistency—a rarity in her life.
Longo also uses blackbirds to symbolically mark places that are of great importance to the protagonist. In Chapter 3, Joellen takes Muiriel to Francine’s house for the first time, and they see “[b]lackbirds, a moving shape of black wings racing silent circles above the house and field” (21). Joellen and Muiriel see the flock’s presence as a good sign, which foreshadows Francine’s house as a true and lasting home for Muiriel. Another of the novel’s most significant settings is Blackbird Coffee and Pie. In Chapter 4, Muiriel meets her best friend, Kira, at the coffee shop and learns about the internship at Salishwood Environmental Education Center, further establishing blackbirds as a good omen marking places where the protagonist finds safety and positive relationships.
The Gold Chain
Throughout Longo’s narrative, the gold chain Muiriel carries serves as a motif for the theme of The Process of Healing and Letting People in. When Muiriel is in third grade, she is taken in by a couple that nearly adopts her. The foster father brings her to a jewelry store to pick out a present for the foster mother, and she selects “a necklace, a simple gold chain that looked like something a mom could wear all the time, even to the park or the pool or riding bikes” (18). A week after she gives her foster mother the necklace, the couple sends Muiriel to a new foster home, and she sees that the “simple, perfect chain” is now a “a knotted pile” (18). Muiriel takes the necklace with her and spends the next 10 years trying to untangle it. The knotted necklace reflects the protagonist’s damaged trust. She’s averse to letting other people in after the painful experience of rejection by people she had come to view as family.
After Muiriel moves to the island, she encounters characters who help her in the painstaking but vital process of healing. In Chapter 9, she shows Kira great trust by allowing her best friend to work on the necklace’s tangles. Unbeknownst to Muiriel, Kira later enlists the help of her boyfriend, Sean, and her foster mother, Francine. In Chapter 21, Francine gives the necklace back to Muiriel during their follow-up conversation about the possibility of Francine either adopting Muiriel or being her extended foster care parent. Muiriel marvels that the necklace is “perfect and strong and whole. All this time, all those hands, still not broken” (310). Seeing the necklace untangled helps her understand that Francine, Sean, and Kira do not see her as broken but rather as someone they want to help. Their patience, love, and effort gradually help her feel safe enough to grow close to them and to eventually decide to remain on the island. The gold chain plays a vital role in the novel’s resolution by offer a physical representation of Muiriel’s healing.
The Allen Wrench
Longo positions the Allen wrench in the narrative as a symbol of connection. Its symbolic meaning reflects its practical function—bringing separate pieces together to form a whole. Muiriel uses the wrench to assemble the bunk bed she shares with Zola in Chapter 7. She gives it to her foster sister to comfort the lonely, frightened girl and tells her, “Different isn’t necessarily broken [...] Sometimes small and bent is the only thing that can make something big and new and safe” (81). Thus, the wrench becomes a symbol of connection, especially between the foster girls. This is significant because Muiriel openly cares for and looks after Zola even though the protagonist tells herself that she mustn’t form attachments. In Chapter 1, Zola gives the wrench back to Muiriel when the older girl leaves their shared foster home, saying, “In case you get lonely” (5). Muiriel keeps the wrench among her pillowcase full of treasures, suggesting that she prizes her connection with her foster sister. At the end of the story, Muiriel defends Zola at great personal risk. Afterward, she is able to return the wrench to Zola because of the connections she has formed with the people on the island. She knows that she won’t be lonely any longer. Zola asks, “You don’t need it anymore?” Muriel replies, “No, […] I don’t think so. Not anymore” (305). The wrench appears at the beginning and end of the novel—a structural indicator Longo uses to demonstrate Muiriel’s arc—taking the very advice she gave to Zola and applying it to herself as her ability to form connections with other people grows stronger over the course of the story. The Allen wrench symbolizes connection and illuminates the protagonist’s development and key relationships.
