100 pages • 3 hours read
Jennifer LathamDreamland Burning
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A 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
The Receipt
Stan Tillman agrees to Joseph’s proposed payment plan, which he normally only extends to white customers. The terms of the sale are beyond stringent. Not only will Joseph forfeit all money paid if he is a moment late on a single payment, but Stan refuses to give Joseph a receipt. A receipt would implicate Stan for violating Jim Crow segregation laws. Without the receipt, Joseph must trust that Stan will remain honest; however, Stan’s interests are completely protected whether he trusts Joseph or not. In fact, as Joseph makes his payments faithfully every week, Stan seems offended, as if he had expected Joseph to default.
The receipt Will writes wouldn’t force his father to honor the money paid, but it is significant because it creates the paper trail that his father was avoiding and represents Will’s trust in Joseph and Ruby. Giving Joseph the receipt is a way of choosing Joseph and Ruby over his father, who Will now knows is not to be trusted. In the end, Will fulfills the promise of the receipt without his father’s knowledge and permission, even paying the last of the debt before delivering the Victrola. When Rowan returns the receipt to Joe Tillman, his response shows that the receipt became a symbol in family legend.
Additionally, because the receipt is found on the body under the floorboards in the present day, the passing of the receipt from person to person in the past becomes a proverbial game of hot potato. Whoever it lands on is murdered and buried unceremoniously in an anonymous grave. When Vernon puts the receipt in his wallet, he undoubtedly expects to blackmail Will’s father, especially now that Stan has become a Klansman and it could be particularly damaging.
Greenwood
In 1921, the district of Greenwood was the wealthiest black community in the United States. When Will sees it for the first time, he is astounded. African Americans built a home for themselves that rivaled the white part of town, demonstrating the incredible progress that the black community made in only 60 years since emancipation. The Dreamland Theatre in particular stands as an icon of culture and black achievement. Vernon Fish attempts to degrade the community by exclaiming, “That strip of junk shops and cathouses up on Greenwood ain’t nothin’ but a blighted piece of Africa befouling our fair city” (49), but the district earned the name “Black Wall Street” for a reason. It was thriving and successful, home to many educated professionals who were more intelligent and successful than Vernon could ever imagine being.
When white mobs burned the district down, they were trying to stifle black progress in the unspoken fear that the black community might overtake the white community, and that the balance of power would shift away from white supremacists. Although the survivors did rebuild, Greenwood was never the same. In the present day, Rowan refers to the area as “the part of town voted most likely to get you shot” (63). Greenwood as a symbol of optimism was permanently destroyed in the 1921 riot. It was no longer a safe haven for black community, but a place that one had to escape to find success. The burning of Greenwood was about more than looting and destruction of property—it was about the destruction of hope.
Peach Pie
Ruby and Joseph’s mother, Della, owns the Nut-n-Honey café in Greenwood and makes what Ruby calls “the best [peach pies] in the whole wide world” (119-120). A love for peach pie is one of Ruby and Will’s first commonalities. The peach pies in the novel are made by black women as a symbol of love and affection. After the riot, the peach pies become a symbol of generational knowledge and familial connection. The buildings may have been burned to the ground, but family recipes are often memorized and passed down through practice while baking together in the kitchen.
When Rowan encounters the peach pie, it comes from Aunt Tilda who brings it to Arvin’s funeral reception. She offers it to Rowan as a comfort, identifying Rowan as family because there is something essential about her blackness that connects her to the black community, regardless of her half-white heritage. Aunt Tilda’s pie is the same recipe that Della Goodhope made in her café and for her children nearly a century ago. Eating the pie in the present day is like sharing a meal with Ruby and Joseph. The recipe represents the shared cultural and familial history of Greenwood. After the riot, Ruby bakes a pie for Will and his family on June 1 every year—the date that Will killed Vernon to save both Ruby and Joseph’s lives and to rescue Ruby from being raped. Ruby’s yearly pie reminds Will that he and his mother are their family now. Even after Ruby dies, the pie lives on as a symbol of community.
