Some important plot:
- Ossie's ghost boyfriend "[leaves her] at the altar" (300).
- Marrying a ghost meant commiting suicide for him.
- Kiwi gets a piloting license through his mainland job and spots Ossie off-shore, about to kill herself. He stops her. "It occurred to him that he was looking at a small noose" (301).
- I still do not fully understand the importance of Ossie's undead life, a significant part of the book.
- The ending suggest that Ossie has a hallucinogenic disease such as schizophrenia due to her long periods of time without socialization. "A psychiatrist put Ossie on a variety of helpful beekeeping-type medications... that were supposed to thin the ghostly voices in her head to a pleasant drone" (315).
- Ava is raped by Bird Man deep in the Everglades of Florida and is found many days later by park rangers. She vows to never tell a soul. "No, I don't have to tell a soul about this" (263).
- Although a very terrible scene, I pointed out in my previous blog posts that Bird Man seemed creepy, as if foreshadowing something like this event.
- The Chief is reunited with his children on the mainland, after Kiwi discovers his secret second casino job. "It's over" (315).
- The childrens' near death experiences remind the Chief of how much his family really means to him.
The most important passage of the novel occurs during the scene in which the family is reunited after their great split. This passage supports the theme that family will always be important and can always be brought back together.
"When my father stepped forward it didn't matter that we were nowhere near our island. All of us, the four of us- the five of us if you counted mom inside us- we were home. We were a family again, a love that made the roomiest privacy that I have ever occupied" (312).
As the book continually alternates chapters between the lives of Kiwi and Ava, it becomes evident that neither one can keep the family out of their thoughts for too long.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the meaning of Swamplandia! as a whole.
You mention throughout your posts that Ava being a young narrator has an impact on the book. Why do you think that the author chose to have a young narrator? How would the book be different if the narrator was older?
ReplyDeleteI like the format of your post. Since you think that Swamplandia is about the importance of family, do you find any similarities with this book and Song of Solomon?
ReplyDeleteNice post! Like Kyle said, I like the formatting of your post - it’s very different from just conventional paragraphs. Anyway, your book has a similar message to my book. Both discuss the importance of family yet they differ slightly in their endings. My book sends the message that family is not forever and can change in the blink of an eye but the book you are reading seems to send the message that family is forever. Do you think that it is necessarily always one way or the other? Why or why not?
ReplyDeleteHi Madeline! I saw your comment on my blog earlier, and I was surprised to hear that our books had similar themes relating to traditionalism vs. anarchism. I am even more surprised to see that your book is also centered around family. What would you say the connection between these two themes are?
ReplyDeleteHow do you feel about this thematic idea in light of the plot details of the novel? By this I mean, does it ring true for you if the family was so disconnected and experienced such horrible things (some of them) because of the dissolution of the family? I guess I would have a hard time thinking that there would be no resentment on the parts of some of the characters.
ReplyDelete