62 pages • 2 hours read
Ben PhilippeField Guide to the North American Teenager
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019A 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
Norris's Field Guide
Norris’s titular field guide is an ever-present motif throughout the novel, both because the notebook is always on Norris’s person and because Norris’s field guide entries open each chapter. The field guide serves as a motif for the theme of The Influence of Stereotypes on Judgment and, later, The Impact of Words. Norris’s field guide entries begin in Chapter 1, even though he doesn’t receive his notebook until the end of Chapter 2. These entries reflect the judgments that Norris makes about the people and things he encounters in Austin. For example, Norris’s first entry describes Austin as “[g]enerally inhospitable to human life” and speculates about Austin’s “environmental insecurity masked as pride” (1). Norris’s entries continue to be just as scathing as he begins to write about the varying encounters he has with cheerleaders, loners, jocks, and other archetypes at Anderson High.
Norris’s writings include a mixture of his own observations and opinions as well as generalizations and judgments based on tropes he’s witnessed in movies and television. For example, in Maddie’s “The Beta Cheerleader” entry, Norris writes that her hobbies include “[k]issing the asses of those at the top” and that she’ll end up holding the hair of her puking sorority sisters and perpetually a bridesmaid (70). Although Norris hasn’t gotten to know Maddie at this point, he writes scathing things about who he thinks she is based on stereotypes and his own judgmental thoughts. Through Norris’s judgments within the field guide, the novel develops the theme of The Influence of Stereotypes on Judgment by showing how Norris uses stereotypes he’s seen in movies to sort and judge people.
The field guide motif shifts in the back half of the book, however, when Aarti reveals Norris’s judgmental writings to Maddie. When Maddie takes in the mean-spirited words Norris has written about her, it destroys the relationship that she and Norris have just begun. Norris continues to deal with the fallout of the pain his words have caused throughout the rest of the novel, and in the Epilogue, he is still working to make things right with Maddie. The revelation of Norris’s field guide entries to Maddie and the consequences that follow develop the theme of the Impact of Words, showing how Norris’s words damage the relationship he wants to build with Maddie.
Norris's Mouth
Most of the conflict Norris faces in the novel comes from his use of words, and the narrative refers to this through the motif of Norris’s mouth. This first appears in Chapter 2 when Judith speaks to Norris about giving Austin a fair try. She warns Norris about his “fricking mouth” and tells him to “watch what [he] say[s] to” his new classmates (15). Judith’s warning indicates that Norris has had issues in the past stemming from his careless use of words. Whenever the narrative refers to Norris’s mouth, it is often in the context of him talking carelessly, which develops the theme of The Impact of Words.
In Chapter 6, Norris’s mouth is personified as he begins to criticize the football players in a hallway confrontation. When Norris speaks, it’s “Norris’s mouth suddenly [that talks] way too loudly” (63), not Norris himself. Similarly, the narrator notes that Norris’s “mouth continue[s] like it tended to do” (63), emphasizing the lack of control Norris has over his words. Norris makes enemies with the football players by likening them to cavemen, resulting in Patrick throwing Norris into wet paint. Afterward, Norris acknowledges that “his mouth sometimes slip[s] beyond his control” (65). The narrative focus on Norris’s “mouth” reveals that Norris doesn’t always think about the words he says.
Norris’s mouth as a motif comes up again in Chapter 20 when he consults Maddie about his suddenly cold texting trail with Aarti. After Maddie examines Norris’s texts, she tells him that he’s “trying so hard” and describes his stream of texts as “barraging the poor girl with Ping-Ping balls she has to whack back” (195). Norris realizes this is “[his] goddamn mouth, as Judith had warned him. Only in text form” (195). The reference to the motif of Norris’s mouth here suggests that Norris’s excessive texting is, like his speech, uncontrollable and careless.
Paper Family
Paper Family is the independent film that Aarti takes Norris to on their first date in Chapter 14. It symbolizes how Norris presents himself in the world and his self-imposed distance from those around him.
The film is about the lonely life of a woman who perfects a unique form of origami but never shares it with anyone and dies alone. Norris and Aarti discuss their differing viewpoints on how the woman lived her life. Aarti feels that the woman “never found her tribe” and “died alone, surrounded by fake paper people in a town of actual people that were dying to get to know her” (144-45). Aarti goes on to speculate that she was miserable and “made people close to her leave” (145). However, Norris has a different perspective. He feels that “[s]he might have been really happy alone, doing what she loved in privacy” (145). Norris and Aarti disagree about the message the filmmaker is trying to convey, and their disagreement symbolizes the way Norris sees himself versus the way others see him. Norris thinks it’s okay that he’s mostly a loner and looks down on other people. His judgmental nature creates distance between himself and others, but he doesn’t see this as a bad thing. However, Aarti’s interpretation of the film symbolizes how others see Norris: bitter, alone, and intentionally pushing people away.
The film’s symbolism returns late in Chapter 35 when Norris realizes that “the whole point of approaching life as origami […] [is] learning to fold your sharp edges” (353). Norris realizes that he has been hard to get along with and has pushed people away in Austin, and he no longer wants to be like that. Norris’s decision to “fold” his “sharp edges” symbolizes a shift in his self-perception.
