76 pages • 2 hours read
Kim EdwardsThe Memory Keeper's Daughter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “1970”
Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary: “May 1970”
Norah explains to Paul’s teacher, in annoying detail,that he is allergic to bees.Norah reflects on the few aspects of Paul that are like either herself or David:“But mostly Paul was simply himself. He loved music and hummed made-up songs all day long” (126). Norah’s rich and put-together frenemy, Kay, chats with Norah about Kay’s infant daughter and the protests at the university campus. Norah envies Kay for her unfamiliarity with loss. Norah thinks about her daily drinking habits, and Kay says she will come to Norah's party. Norah says she has to take down the wasps’ nest in their backyard, and Kay is stunned that she doesn’t have people to do this for her. Norah looks forward to accomplishing this task. They talk about Paul’s singing ability, and Kay asks to let him sing at a Cinderella-themed fundraiser,which pleases Norah:“At least this party, like the wasps, would provide another anchor to her days” (129).
Norah remembers when she drove drunk to the river with Paul in the backseat of the car, then promised to take him to the zoo. She thinks about her interview yesterday for a travel agency job as she drives past the university. She goes on campus and finds Bree passing out leaflets. Bree introduces Norah to her boyfriend, Mark, and Norah feels self-conscious about her clothes. They talk about the protests wherein students set a flag on fire, and Bree says that Mark lost half his foot in Vietnam. Bree pulls Norah aside to speak privately about the success of the protest and her love life, asking if she can bring Mark to the party. Norah admits that she doesn’t know if she still wants the travel agency job, and Bree reprimands her for being afraid of change. Norah retorts with a comment about Bree’s love life, and Bree leaves. Norah wonders “how could she envy Kay Marshall one moment and Bree the next, for such completely different reasons” (133).
Norah drinks at home, thinking about how distant she feels towards David and how obsessed he has become with pictures and rocks. She goes outside to tackle the wasps’ net, thinking about how David refuses to have another child. She remembers when Paul had an allergic reaction to a bee sting and how terrified she was. She cuts down the wasps’ nest and they start stinging her,so she runs inside for protection. She drinks more, then gets the vacuum and goes back outside to suck all the wasps into it. She also sucks up some dirt, then sticks the vacuum hose onto the car’s tailpipe.She looks in the mirror, thinking about how other people see her. Norah gets her keys to go get Paul from school, and the vacuum—still attached to the car’s tailpipe—explodes. She worries that the wasps will get away, so she finds the vacuum bag and stomps them to death:“It was Paul she was fighting for, but also for some understanding of herself” (138). She does not tell David, accepts the job, and goes back on her promise to Kay about the fundraiser, finally deciding that she must live her own life.
Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary
Paul enters into his father’s dark room, ruining the photographs and angering David. He yells at Paul but then apologizes:“David kissed his forehead, regretting that moment of anger, marveling at his son’s shoulder blades, elegant and perfect, stretching out like wings beneath layers of skin and muscle” (140-141). Paul shows David crinoid fossils that he found the day before. David stays in the darkroom while Norah gets ready for the party outside, and David promises to look them up with him later. He leaves, runs into Norah who tells him to get dressed and gets annoyed when he suggests she hire a catering company instead of planning the party herself, as she had. David goes upstairs to get ready, and Paul watches him, talking to him about his life. David shares a little about his history, and Paul tries to engage with him. David thinks about the letters that Caroline has been sending him over the years:“They had never known each other well, yet her letters to him had grown increasingly intimate” (143). David remembers once going to Cleveland to look for Caroline, but eventually he gave up and went home.
Paul complains that David forgot to look up the fossils, and they go to the den to look at them.Paul goes out to show his mother and the arriving guests the fossils, and David watches his wife, wondering how they drifted so far apart. Paul goes on the swings and Norah tells him to take his fossil necklace off, worried that they might catch and choke him. David tells her it’s fine, and Bree agrees. Bree and Norah share a moment of mutual understanding in a look, and when David tries to engage with them, they ignore him. Bree introduces David to Mark, and David and Mark have a tense conversation about the protests but then find common ground in that they grew up near Elkins, West Virginia. They talk about not going back to their roots after they left because it was strange, both belonging and not. Bree talks about David being a mystery, and David reflects on how this simple encounter exposed his vulnerability, remembering how his father did not expect him to come back after school. David talks briefly to Kay, who once drunkenly kissed him. He goes back into the darkroom, remembering “the moment [Norah had] shared with Bree, how connected they were, beyond any bond he’d ever share with her again” (149). He gets his camera and goes back down to the party.
Norah reprimands him for taking out the camera, trying to get him to enjoy the party instead.Norah talks about the work she put into the party, saying that David is being rude, and David kisses her wasp sting. Paul calls to them from half-way up a tree. Norah tells him to get down,but David says it’s fine. Bree starts toying with the maypole, and the branch Paul is on breaks and he falls. David rushes to his side, realizing that Paul’s arm is broken. Norah and David take Paul to the hospital, leaving their guests behind. Paul silently cries. When they get to the hospital, David goes to his office room, marveling at the various x-rays he has taken:“What excited David was the precision he’s achieved, and the way the images did not resemble a part of the human body as much as other things: lightning branching down to earth, rivers moving darkly, a wavering expanse of sea” (152). He remembers a defining moment in his childhood when he saw his feet x-rayed for the first time, recognizing the hidden structures underneath the world. He thinks of June and Phoebe.
David tells Norah that Paul’s arm is broken, and Norah laments how she tried so hard to care of the wasps’ nest, only to have this happen. Paul gets upset when David tells him he can’t swim or play little league this summer. He and Norah argue. Paul apologizes for ruining David’s pictures earlier, so David gives him a stethoscope as a distraction. He talks to Norah, explaining that he wishes she were happy. She tells him about her job, and David and Norah argue more. They go home, and Norah says that David is selfish. David thinks about film and reads Paul a story while Norah cleans up from the party.
Part 3, Chapter 10 Summary
Doro mentions that Phoebe has Caroline’s hair at Phoebe’s progressive preschool, which makes Caroline remember when Leo said that Phoebe had Caroline’s temper shortly before he died. Phoebe plays with the other children who don’t notice anything different about her. The parents, however, make remarks: “Thoughtless or ignorant or cruel,it didn’t matter; over the years these comments had rubbed a raw spot in Caroline’s heart” (159). Doro and Caroline discuss the Upside Down Society’s fight to include children with special needs in public schools. They talk about love, and Caroline thinks about how Al has asked her to marry him twice. She thinks about when she found Leo dead and how, after his funeral, Doro asked her to stay in the house.
Caroline meets Sandra, the Upside Down Society, and their lawyer at a meeting with the Board of Education. Their lawyer argues that these children are capable of improvement and deserve education, but the board argues that they will not succeed in a regular public school system. The lawyer argues over the use of pejorative terminology, and the board maintains that they will be a burden. Caroline despairs that they will never see Phoebe as she sees her.Caroline becomes so angry she speaks out about the rights of children: “I see a roomful of men who appear to have forgotten that in this country we promise an education to every child—regardless of ability”(163). The Board talks about how they want her to be a productive member of society, but the lawyer cuts them off, saying that this is an issue of equality based on civil rights law, which the board says does not apply. The rest of UDS is optimistic,but Caroline still feels anxious as she drives to pick up Phoebe.
At home, Caroline tries to appreciate her daughter but still feels troubled. Al comes home with a butterfly net for Phoebe and Caroline relays the news. Al gives her emotional support and hands her mail from David, which is loaded with cash like all the others that she has put in a savings account for Phoebe. Al reflects on the music availability here in comparison to some of the other towns he stays in, then asks Caroline to go dancing. Caroline replies that they should dance right here: “He was puzzled, bemused, but then he was standing with his hand resting on her shoulder and they were moving on the lawn to the thin strains of music, the background of rushing cars” (167).
Phoebe starts crying and Caroline goes to attend to her, realizing a bee has stung her. Phoebe starts having an allergic reaction, and she and Al race to the hospital as Phoebe struggles to breathe. They get a nurse’s attention, and the nurse sees Phoebe and asks if they really want to save her. Caroline goes to slap her, but Al catches her face and reprimands the nurse instead. Al comforts Caroline as they wait on Phoebe to be released, and Caroline realizes that he could leave and never come back. She tells Al that she’ll marry him.
Part 3 Analysis
The third section demonstrates Norah’s growing descent into alcoholism and depression as a result of the loss of her daughter. However, this loss also puts her son at risk, despite her mentions of how careful and protective of him she tries to be. For example, Norah’s choice to drive drunk with him or to stick the wasp-filled vacuum on the car’s tailpipe illustrate just how disassociated from reality Norah has become. Like many other people who suffer from alcoholism, Norah has no sense of consequence but rather feels the burden of the grief she bears in all its immediacy. Norah uses alcohol in order to feel calm, relating it to the positivity associated with light.
She is also the typical bored housewife of the 1960s, almost a case study for Betty Freidan. Norah feels lost at the sea of her grief, frequently mixing metaphors as though trying to find the right words to understand her psychic pain. She also talks about both floating and needing an anchor for her days, suggesting that the grief both weighs her down and makes her float away. In this way, the grief itself becomes dynamic, changing to fit Norah’s environment. The audience also witnesses that part of this grief is a result of Norah’s desire for autonomy and agency. Only through violence—for example, by killing the wasps—can Norah be released from the confines of her social norms as this instance represents her kind of epiphany.
Similarly, the audience witnesses the tension between Norah and her husband mounting, as it does in each section. They do not understand each other, and what they want is continuously at odds with one another: another child, the photographs, Norah’s job. Everything is turned into an argument and neither are happy. The rising tension within the historical context also mirrors the tension at home between David and Norah. The hostility in their relationship is contrasted by the growing relationship and symbiosis between Al and Caroline when Caroline decides to permit Al into her heart.
Many of the problems that Norah and David face seem to be the direct result of David’s inability to communicate with other people, although none of the characters can be said to be excellent communicators. However, David is by far the worst, never allowing people into his inner thoughts. He finds rocks and bones easier to connect to than people. He uses these ideas to try to build a relationship with his son, who he constantly disappoints. However, the audience also witnesses David’s internal strife as he is torn between wanting to tell his wife and trying to find out more about his daughter.David’s desire for human connection metamorphose into the belief that all things are interconnected. In search of this interconnectivity, he uses his photography in order to relate to people and his environment.
