Remarkably Bright Creatures

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-12

Chapters 13-27

Chapters 28-39

Chapters 40-57

Chapters 58-66

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Erik’s Class Ring

Erik’s class ring forms both the inciting incident of the novel and its climax. Cameron first discovers it with his mother’s old things and becomes convinced it’s a way out of his money problems. The ring says “EELS,” which he takes to be a sign of the school mascot or, later, the original owner’s marine interests. The reader learns that the letters actually stand for Erik’s full initials.

The ring becomes a driving force in each of the main characters’ lives at one point: for Cameron, he believes it can bring him to his estranged father and a financial payout. Although his story doesn’t play out in the way he expects, the ring actually does fulfill this end as it brings him together with his lineage and his newfound grandmother. For Marcellus, it becomes the focal point of the final stretch of his quest to reunite Tova with her only living family. He braves the wolf eels, the symbol of his trauma and captivity, to reclaim it. Inadvertently, it’s his retrieval of the ring that leads to him being brought back to the sea.

When Tova finally does receive the ring from Marcellus, she sees it as a symbol of everything she lost and the knowledge that she still has family somewhere in the world. By the end of the novel, the journey this ring has taken has, in a variety of ways, brought each character to what they need most.

Ethan’s T-shirt

Ethan’s Grateful Dead T-shirt is a beloved relic from a 1995 concert, one of the last before the lead singer’s death. For Tova and Ethan, it represents a cultural divide between them and a breaking point in their tenuous, half-formed relationship. Although Tova means well, she thoughtlessly inserts herself into another’s space because she’s set in her own way of doing things—her methods of cleaning, her standards of hygiene, and her way of organizing household compartments. While in Ethan’s home, it doesn’t occur to her that someone else may live differently than she does. She has a moment of introspective epiphany when she reflects on the off-putting disrepair of the item and realizes it’s “not horribly worn. Well loved” (265). This experience helps her overcome her ingrained prejudices and broadens her perception of others.

For Ethan, the T-shirt becomes a symbol of regret, as he realizes that within the moment, he chose a material object over his friendship with Tova. While this is an understandable and instinctual human reaction to the experience, it tore down the progress he had made toward his primary goal within the story: forging a closer connection with her. By reacting harshly to her mistake, he pushed that goal farther away than it had ever been.

However, the contention doesn’t last; Tova immediately seeks to replace the damaged item at great financial and personal cost, and Ethan immediately apologizes for his own behavior. By creating a scene in which these two characters are pitted against each other, the author gives them an opportunity to show their moral values and the way they react to conflict. Each takes responsibility for their actions, and the act of doing so brings them even closer together.

Animals

Animals are a constant motif throughout the novel, both as characters and as symbols. Marcellus sees the world through a hybrid lens of both animal and human, and the animals he surrounds himself with play an essential role in his story. In particular, the wolf eels represent his fears of the world he left behind and the obstacle he needs to overcome to complete his mission for Tova. Tova reflects on how the wolf eels remind her of “cable-channel horror films” (5). This sets up the revelation about Marcellus’s past.

The animal motif also appears in unexpected places, such as the artificial frogs that populate Cameron’s aunt’s trailer. Later, this motif appears on Jessica Snell’s desk while Cameron’s trying to track down his supposed father. Another artificial animal that plays an integral role is the sea lion statue within the aquarium. While this isn’t a living sea animal, it becomes a focal point for Tova’s cleaning and, as such, an extension of her. Marcellus uses this to give her Cameron’s driver’s license in hopes of bringing the two of them together.

Other animals appear when Cameron stays with his friends and sees a large raccoon on the property. Cameron immediately sees it as an adversary, symbolizing his disconnection with the natural world. Later in the novel Tova reflects on her son’s experience with an animal, bringing home an injured crab named Eddie. The family gave Eddie a burial when he died, symbolizing their deeper connection with nature and the way it has become intertwined with their lives. The easy connection Tova has with animals juxtaposes Cameron’s city-bred relationship with them and the challenges he needs to overcome.

The other animal who becomes essential to the story is Cat, the stray that makes friends with Tova early on. Unlike Marcellus, who is completely contained, Cat is a creature of the wild; This is apparent in their completely contrasting names. Tova hesitantly begins a relationship with Cat, allowing it to come into her life much in the same way that she’s slowly coming into Marcellus’s. When Tova plans to move to the retirement home, she learns that she can’t bring Cat with her—an instance of foreshadowing, telling the reader that Tova is moving away from her place in the natural world. By the end of the novel, Cat and Marcellus’s roles have been reversed. Marcellus once again becomes a creature of the wild while Cat slowly allows themself to feel at home in domesticity.