58 pages • 1 hour read
Sara NovicTrue Biz
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Deaf Community as a Support Network
Before enrolling at River Valley, Charlie has virtually no ties to the Deaf community. She has a Deaf cousin on her father’s side but never knew him because he died in a car accident when she was a small child. Charlie “hadn’t met another deaf person since” (15). Finally being afforded the opportunity to be among her own community has a hugely positive impact on Charlie in practically every way. First, Charlie’s acquisition of a new language (ASL) gives her the boost she needs to socialize with her peers and forge meaningful friendships, as “with each successful social interaction, Charlie accrued new slivers of self-confidence” (172). This newfound self-assurance allows her to fade from being “the conversation’s focus to regular conversant,” allowing her “shoulders to relax” (173) and ultimately permitting her to become fully present in her social interactions. In time, the patient support she receives from her peers brings Charlie fully into the fold. No longer the butt of the joke, an experience to which she was accustomed at her old school, “River Valley […] made her hopeful” (252).
River Valley and the Deaf community at large prove to be a vital support network for many of Charlie’s peers. For Austin, who is fifth-generation Deaf from a family that is proud of its heritage, the Deaf community is all he knows. Growing up in a family so deeply entrenched in the Deaf community directly impacts his self-perception. Austin’s “charmed childhood surrounded by sign language and people who loved him fiercely” enables him to grow “into the kind of bubbly, self-assured boy one can only be if he feels wholly understood” (47). As he is growing up, Austin comes to understand that his ties to the Deaf community, especially juxtaposed with the lives of his Deaf peers who were not afforded the same privilege, makes him “very lucky” (47).
Though February is a hearing person, she, too, finds a reliable lifelong support network in the Deaf community. Her proximity to the community by way of her Deaf parents instilled in her a deep sense of love and appreciation for Deaf people and culture. This love is so profound that it even pushes her to attempt to make herself go Deaf by stabbing a pencil in her ear at age nine. February became so entrenched in her parents’ community that the Deaf world was “a world she disliked leaving” at an early age (8). Even amid the stress of losing both her mother and her job within the same year, she finds solace in the Deaf community at River Valley, as “even without seeing another soul on the quad, she knew she wasn’t alone” (327).
The Transformative Power of Language
One of the most prevalent themes in the novel is how language—and, in this case, learning and sharing it—can have an overall positive impact on a person. Most notably, Charlie begins to grasp the transformative power of language when she enrolls at River Valley and begins learning sign language.
For Charlie, the sole Deaf person in a hearing family, learning ASL empowers her to better understand her culture, her community, and herself. Before enrolling at River Valley and signing up for nightly ASL classes with her father, Charlie has virtually no knowledge of ASL. Because she received a cochlear implant at age three and was forced to take speech therapy to better acclimate to the hearing world, Charlie grew accustomed to missing out on conversations that she cannot follow and to being unable to adequately express herself. Her acquisition of ASL enables her to realize that there are more effective ways for her to communicate her thoughts and feelings. Even before she embarks on this journey, Charlie is enthralled by sign language; when she meets with Headmistress Waters before the beginning of the semester, she is impressed with the woman’s ability to both sign and speak at the same time and “longed to find meaning in the arc of the woman’s hands” (17). Though Charlie is enchanted by this first meeting, February is infuriated, angry on Charlie’s behalf that her loved ones held her back from learning the language that will best enable her to effectively communicate. Even more maddening for February is the fact that despite her less-than-impressive academic history, Charlie is clearly intelligent and capable. February immediately recognizes that Charlie was unable to thrive in a mainstream educational setting because she had to constantly read lips, which was an unreliable tactic for her, and she is confident that learning ASL and living within her community will give Charlie the tools she needs to learn and perform well in school. Though February acknowledges that Charlie is far from the worst case she has ever seen, given that she “had language,” the fact that “she’d had to work way too hard for it” (20) infuriates her. The Serranos’ decision to keep Charlie from learning sign language ultimately rendered her voiceless.
Though she initially has a difficult time keeping up with the signing when she first arrives at River Valley, several weeks into the semester “Charlie’s language was burgeoning” (170). In the beginning, her peers might “[snicker] […] when she said something clunky in class” (171), but they are now “patient” which encourages Charlie to keep learning by taking risks and making mistakes. In fact, her newfound ability to communicate effectively with her peers gives her a new sense of self-worth, as “with each successful social interaction, Charlie accrued new slivers of self-confidence” (172). Prior to having access to ASL and a peer group, she was trapped in a dynamic of limited communication and a school system that set her up to fail, but learning sign language equips her to express herself and build deep relationships with friends for the first time.
The Complex Nature of Mother-Daughter Relationships
The complex nature of mother-daughter relationships is a central theme of the novel. Charlie’s relationship with her mother was always rocky. The novel’s early chapters establish that “Charlie was aware from a young age that she was not the daughter her mother wanted” (35). While Charlie asserts that the state of their relationship has more to do with “a clash of personalities” than “the fact of her deafness,” it becomes clear as the story progresses that Charlie’s deafness is a major point of contention on her mother’s part. Their inability to connect with one another in any meaningful way is a point of concern and another root of their bickering and further disengagement. Charlie recalls her mother once exclaiming, “You don’t know what it’s like to have made a human who hates you!” (36). Though Charlie reassures her mother in the moment that she does not hate her, the fact that “she had no idea what to do after that” suggests that they have yet to discover how to communicate with one another.
Perhaps the greatest source of disconnection between Charlie and her mother relates to Charlie’s cochlear implant, for which she feels deep, lifelong disdain. As a minor who has been Deaf her entire life, Charlie was never afforded a choice regarding implantation. In fact, the decision to undergo surgery and pursue the cochlear implant was entirely her mother’s. Lynnette’s continued insistence that Charlie wear an implant—even after she had to have it removed to save her life—clearly demonstrates the complexity of their relationship. While Charlie understands her mother’s advocacy for the implant as a symbol of the shame she feels regarding Charlie’s deafness, Lynnette views her decision as coming from a place of love and care. Following Charlie’s fainting spell, in a chapter that expresses her mother’s unfiltered perspective, Lynnette pours her heart out to the hospital staff who are working on Charlie’s paperwork. She pleads, “I only tried to do what was best for her” (324), explaining that her insistence on mainstream school, the implant, and speech therapy were attempts “to give her every opportunity” (324). She hopes to “make it up to Charlie” after the implant causes a medical crisis and longs to “open doors for her” (325). It is clear in this rare emotional confession that though her decisions regarding Charlie’s education and implant were ultimately harmful, her intentions were driven by a desire to support her child. Lynnette’s emotional health crisis and declaration of love for her daughter, juxtaposed with Charlie’s belief that her mother simply dislikes her, highlights the inherently complicated nature of their relationship.
