46 pages • 1 hour read
Lorna LandvikAngry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A 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
AHEB
The name of the book club, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, is an act of rebellion against men’s assumptions about female communities, reflecting the husbands’ gamut of responses—curiosity, suspicion, amusement, and outright hostility over what will come of women sharing their lives, feelings, and causes. As such, AHEB becomes a symbol of rebellion, an act of solidarity and commitment to female friendship, to emotional and intellectual lives apart from motherhood, wifehood, and domesticity.
Claiming the name is initially an act of defiance; later, it celebrates the identity of shared community, one valued by each woman. The endurance of the name attests to and represents the lasting bonds between the women and their commitment to their friendships. Ultimately, the club takes on the nature of an institution. The scrapbook Faith is making at the end of the novel attests to how the club has become a locus of identity, marking friendship as well as symbolizing attachment.
The Neighborhood Circus
Though it only features in a few scenes, the neighborhood circus symbolizes life in Freesia Court and, more generally, life in the suburban United States in the latter decades of the 20th century. The circus represents the traditions and continuity of the neighborhood as well as the community’s closeness. The campout, supervised by the dads, is a way to give the children a unique experience that is still safe and sheltered.
The circus is a device to showcase talents that make the children distinct—Flannery’s talent at writing; Julia’s showmanship as the ringmaster; Beau’s uniqueness as an acrobat; the close bonds between Merit’s daughters, which arose possibly as a response to their father’s hostility and neglect. The circus also symbolizes the vitality of the neighborhood and families’ youth. Later, it becomes a nostalgic reenactment of what seems like an earlier, more innocent time.
Snow
Snow bookends the novel, appearing in both the introductory scene and the final chapter as a way to bond the protagonists and show their evolution and endurance. The playful, childlike exuberance of a snowball fight lures Faith out of her house and her role as responsible wife and mother, tapping into a part of her that is separate from obligations to others. At the end of the novel, the snowball fight becomes a reenactment of that first bonding experience, reflecting on what has stayed the same for the women despite all that has changed.
As they live in Minnesota, snow is a regular feature for the residents of Freesia Court, something they need to learn to live with for several months out of the year. The snowball fight takes place in the middle of a season generally associated with dormancy, cold, and isolation. It is another indication of the women’s joyful defiance in coming together. It reflects their bond when they start a snowball fight in Slip’s yard in an attempt to lure her out of the house and repair the rift between her and Audrey. Later, Audrey’s snowman with its white flag and branch of olives becomes the peace token that wears down Slip’s obstinacy, reaffirming that snow brings the Housewives together.
