The Icarus Girl

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-9

Part 2, Chapters 1-3

Part 2, Chapters 4-7

Part 2, Chapters 8-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-15

Part 2, Chapters 16-19

Part 2, Chapter 20-Part 3, Chapter 2

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Part 2, Chapters 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary

Jess is late for school. As Jess’s mother hurries with her through the park, Jess asks her mother why she never tells her fairy tales. Jess’s mother answers that she tells Jess African fairy tales, but Jess asks why her mother doesn’t tell her ones like Sleeping Beauty. Jess asks her mother why everyone in Sleeping Beauty falls asleep at the same time as the princess, and her mother says the good fairy didn’t want the princess to wake up years later and find everyone dead. Jess isn’t satisfied with the answer, still frightened by the concept of “a whole castleful of people falling asleep just because one girl had” (185), but she runs into school before she is late.

At school, Jess finds herself cutting pictures of twins out of books to show TillyTilly. She doesn’t realize what she’s doing; she’d “known that she’d been cutting the pictures out, but only on a detached level, like someone within a dream” (186). Another student finds Jess to tell her that they are going to watch videos. When the other student sees what Jess is doing, Jess suddenly becomes afraid of getting in trouble. She runs out of the school and tries to unlock the front gate to escape, but her teacher, Miss Patel, catches her. Miss Patel tries to pull Jess down from the gate but Jess kicks and screams. Finally, Miss Patel carries Jess to the principal’s office. Mr. Heinz and Miss Patel want Jess to apologize, but Jess refuses. At home, Jess tells her mother that she cut out the pictures to show to her friend TillyTilly. Jess’s mother demands to meet TillyTilly’s mother. Jess realizes her mother must have figured out that TillyTilly isn’t real, but Jess says simply that she doesn’t know who TillyTilly’s mother is. Jess’s mother asks Jess if she did this because of Fern, and Jess replies no, even though she thinks that she did. Jess says she doesn’t know whether she will do something like this again, thinking to herself, “Who’d said that she’d wanted to cut out the pictures?” (192).

Later, Jess stares at her reflection in the bathroom mirror for a long time, until she feels herself go into a sort of trance. After a while, Jess “thought that she could make out that her reflection was smiling” and wonders if it is “a trick of sight or of sensation?” (193).

Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary

Jess can’t tell whether she’s awake or dreaming, but she finds herself surrounded by pitch black, pressing a hot coal to her lips. The coal is extremely painful, but TillyTilly stands nearby, encouraging Jess and reminding her that they had read a book in Jess’s grandfather’s study about the angel cleansing Isaiah with a hot coal. Jess looks at TillyTilly, pleading for help, and finally TillyTilly takes the coal from Jess’s hand. TillyTilly holds a black chalice out to Jess and begs Jess to look inside, but Jess refuses.

A while later, Jess realizes she is in bed, and she is no longer in pain. TillyTilly is in Jess’s bedroom. Jess tells TillyTilly that she keeps getting in trouble. TillyTilly tells Jess that it isn’t Jess’s fault for getting in trouble with Miss Patel, because Miss Patel didn’t have to be so mean to Jess. TillyTilly explains, “[Miss Patel] thinks there’s something wrong with you […] Well, there’s something wrong with her, more like!” (198). She says that they should get back at Miss Patel. TillyTilly insists that Jess asked TillyTilly to get back at Miss Patel and then felt bad about it, which is why they did the cleansing ritual with the coal. TillyTilly insists that she is still going to get back at Miss Patel, even though Jess isn’t sure it is a good idea.

The next morning after breakfast, Jess’s mother shows Jess a book titled All About Africa. Jess’s mother explains that in the old days in Nigeria, people believed that twins live in three worlds: “this one, the spirit world, and the Bush, which is a sort of wilderness of the mind” (200). Jess’s mother explains that when a twin died before the other, the family would make a carving to Ibeji, the god of twins, to help the dead twin be happy. Jess’s mother shows Jess a picture of a wooden ibeji statue in the book. Jess recognizes the statue’s long arms and realizes she had seen a version of the statue before, but as the drawing of the long-armed woman in the Boys’ Quarters. Jess’s mother suggests they make a carving for Fern, hoping it will make Jess feel better.

Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary

At school, Jess is paranoid that TillyTilly will try to do something to Miss Patel. Miss Patel tells Jess that she heard that Jess recently received some troubling family news, and it’s okay that Jess had a tantrum the day before. Jess apologizes. Miss Patel looks surprised but tells Jess it’s okay.

That night, Jess doesn’t want to eat her dinner even though it is one of her favorite meals. Jess’s father points out that Jess hasn’t been eating very much at all over the past few days and says that he thinks she should start eating school lunches. Jess shouts, saying she doesn’t want to eat school lunches, causing her mother to hit her on the back of the head. Jess’s father gets angry at Jess’s mother for hitting Jess, and Jess’s mother replies, “If that had been my father, ‘handling that,’ she would’ve been flat on the floor with a few teeth missing!” (206). Jess’s parents get into an argument over discipline techniques, and Jess sneaks past them and upstairs to her bedroom. Jess finds TillyTilly in her bedroom. TillyTilly suggests that she and Jess switch places. TillyTilly magically takes over Jess’s body, and Jess suddenly feels as though she doesn’t have a body, “as if she were—being flung, scattered in steady handfuls, every part of her literally thrown into things” (209). Jess tries to push herself back into her body, but “Tilly-who-was-Jess screamed at her touch, screamed and screamed and screamed as if she couldn’t help it” (210). Hearing the screaming, Jess’s mother comes upstairs and drags TillyTilly, in Jess’s body, downstairs and locks her in the basement. TillyTilly, as Jess, continues screaming, and Jess’s parents fight again about how to discipline. Jess overhears her mother tell her father that she’s scared of Jess, explaining, “I just feel like […] like I should know her, but I don’t know anything. She’s not like me at all. I don’t think she’s like you either. I can’t even tell who this girl is” (212). Jess finally convinces TillyTilly to switch back, and once Jess is back in her own body, she “knelt down and prayed to be free from TillyTilly” (213).

Later that evening, Jess tells her father she doesn’t want to be in Year Five anymore.

Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary

Jess meets again with Dr. McKenzie. He asks Jess to tell him a secret. Jess tells him that she gets scared a lot. Dr. McKenzie asks Jess if she is scared of Fern. Jess explains that she is scared that Fern might try to get her, because Fern might be angry that Jess is alive and she isn’t. Dr. McKenzie asks Jess what it feels like to be scared, and Jess says it feels like a fairy cast a spell on her, and everything is going to change just by her being scared, which is why she screams. Dr. McKenzie tells Jess that it is okay to get scared and that nothing bad is going to happen just because she is scared.

The next day, at school, Jess’s classmate tells Jess that Miss Patel is out for the day and they have a substitute teacher. Nobody knows why Miss Patel is gone. Jess is immediately afraid that TillyTilly did something to Miss Patel.

Part 2, Chapters 12-15 Analysis

Dreams are an important motif throughout the novel. When Jess first returns from Nigeria, she begins having dreams about the long-armed woman. As Jess’s experiences with TillyTilly continue, Jess sometimes has trouble differentiating dreams from reality. At one point, Jess finds herself surrounded by darkness, holding a hot coal to her mouth, unsure whether she is awake or dreaming because the pain feels so real. Jess later finds herself in bed, which implies that the event was a dream, but Jess isn’t sure. Later, an italicized passage notes that “the ibeji woman came to Jess in her sleep and drowned her in a blue blanket” (219); this is likely another dream segment.

Dreams often reveal something that a character is struggling with. When Jess imagines herself holding the coal up to her lips, it is to recreate a cleansing ritual she read about in one of her grandfather’s books, which reflects Jess’s inner struggle of whether to be well-behaved or to cause mischief with TillyTilly. When Jess dreams that she is with the ibeji woman, she is struggling to figure out her relationship to TillyTilly and to her deceased sister, Fern: “Jess herself knew that she needed to understand the precious danger of these things, and what they meant, or she would never be happy” (219). Dreams are used throughout the novel to illuminate Jess’s inner struggles, as well as to illustrate Jess’s inability to sometimes differentiate between what is real and what is imagined.

The theme of cultural differences appears again in this section. When Jess’s father criticizes Jess’s mother for using physical punishment, Jess’s mother says, “You’re implying that my father’s some kind of savage! It’s just […] it’s just discipline! Maybe you just don’t understand that! You’re turning this into some kind of […] some kind of European versus African thing that’s all in my mind” (206-207). Whether each parent’s discipline strategies are representative of their culture, they are indicative of the different ways that Jess’s parents were raised.