74 pages • 2 hours read
Wesley KingOCDaniel
Fiction | Novel | Middle GradeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Numbers
As Daniel says in Chapter 3 of the text, “some numbers are good, and some are not” (29). The number nine is awful for Daniel, and he cannot even bear to write it down. This means that math is a difficult subject for him. Numbers are also a central aspect of his nighttime routine. He has to brush his teeth, take steps to the toilet, wash his hands, and flick his light switch on and off a certain number of times according to “good numbers,” or multiples of five. If he gets these numbers “wrong,” he feels intense anxiety and must repeat the routine from the beginning.
Numbers relating to football serve a positive role later in the book. Football is dominated by numbers in the following ways: the overall score is made of numbers that indicate who has won or lost; each player is identified by a unique number; and there are multiple references to the “15,” “25,” or “35” yard kicks that Daniel must attempt—which is beneficial to Daniel because his “good numbers” are multiples of five. This suggests that a fixation with numbers can potentially be redirected into less harmful games and sports. It is also telling that as Daniel starts to accept his condition, numbers come to feature less prominently in his consciousness.
Stars
Stars plays an important role in the text of OCDaniel and in Daniel’s own novel, The Last Kid on Earth. The charms on Sara’s bracelet are “little stars” (83), which are linked to the “Star Child” concept Sara identifies with and tries to associate with Daniel. Sara uses the star as a symbol to represent uniqueness. At the same time, a star is ambiguous; it is isolated in space—cold, distant, and alien. In this way, stars also represent the difficulty of connection with others that “Star Children” might have, and their struggle to be typical and “return to earth.” Daniel writes in his story that there is a star on the computer with the switch that will enable him to save the world. As he says, “The star grew bigger as he approached. It represented his extraordinary path” (281). Through this journey of self-discovery, he becomes closer to understanding the “stars” of himself and Sara.
Switches
As Daniel says at the start of his novel, “It had all started with the switch” (85). The switch lies both metaphorically and literally at the heart of Daniel’s OCD. In a literal sense, his traumatic nighttime routine involves flicking his light switch the “right” number of times. In some cases, this occurs hundreds of times in a single night. The flicking of the switch also exists as a conflicted cry for help. Though Daniel is desperate to hide his OCD, the flicking of the switch draws attention, both at the school dance and with his parents in his own house.
In Daniel’s story, the flicking of the switch on the computer is a metaphor for Daniel’s OCD. By flicking the switch, he isolates himself from the rest of the world and metaphorically eliminates other humans. After Daniel and Sara save the world, Charles Oliver says, “don’t flick that switch again” (284). In other words, he is encouraging Daniel to seek help and not descend further into isolation. Yet the switch also has a positive element in Daniel’s story. When Sara and Daniel flick the switch, they bring back the world—a metaphor for the possibility of change and fresh starts.
