26 pages • 52 minutes read
Jason ReynoldsEraser Tattoo
Fiction | Short Story | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Dante’s Eraser Tattoo
As a permanent reminder of their love, Shay gives Dante an “eraser tattoo” by rubbing her initial into his skin with a pencil eraser. The tattoo is a multifaceted symbol, taking on various meanings in the story. It represents the lasting effect Shay has on Dante, but it also comes to symbolize the mark that white gentrifiers leave on Black communities. Dante notices that the tattoo turns his skin white, symbolizing the white people who come to Black neighborhoods in Brooklyn and end up displacing residents and contaminating their existing culture and community.
The tattoo also represents the damage that can come from resisting change. Dante refuses to let go of his relationship with Shay so staunchly that he insists on getting her initial tattooed on his arm. But the tattoo burns unbearably—a symbol of the emotional pain Dante inflicts on himself by refusing to accept change.
The Stoop
The stoop where Dante and Shay sit for the majority of “Eraser Tattoo” symbolizes the Black neighborhoods in Brooklyn that become gentrified over time. As Dante and Shay sit on the stoop talking, the new residents who bought Shay’s house pass by them over and over, pushing them farther to the stoop’s edge until Dante and Shay have no room left and have to stand up. This symbolizes the way well-off white people push Black people out of their own neighborhoods, completely ignorant to the damage they are causing.
Dante and Shay don’t even realize at first that they are being shoved off the stoop until there is no room left for them, just as gentrification can be an insidious process that residents don’t even recognize until a neighborhood has changed completely.
The New Tenants
A complementary symbol to the stoop, the new tenants represent the body of wealthy white gentrifiers who systematically displace people of color. The new tenants, who bought Shay’s family house and are thus responsible for forcing her family to leave, are shockingly rude and oblivious throughout the story. They show up and begin moving in before Shay’s mother has even left the house. They push Dante and Shay to the edge of the stoop without ever acknowledging them in any way. They don’t even show any reaction when Dante speaks to them. Their behavior represents the gentrifiers, who tend to be self-centered as well as ignorant and oblivious to the damage they cause.
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By Jason Reynolds
