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Mary MonroeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: This section depicts sexual assault, anti-gay bias, anti-Black racism, lynching, intimate partner violence, graphic violence, murder, termination of a pregnancy, and death by suicide. The source text uses the period-specific term “colored” to refer to Black characters and employs period-specific language to describe sexual orientation, mental health, and intellectual disability.
Maggie’s gumbo is a symbol of Maggie’s influence on and place in her community. It is her signature recipe, the dish she is known and admired for, and becomes closely aligned with her reputation. Gumbo is also associated with the American South, with the recipe evolving to blend flavors characteristic of West African, Indigenous American, and European cultural dishes.
In one respect, the gumbo represents Maggie’s contribution to the communal table as well as her nurturing ability, in that she feeds her family, neighbors, and friends with this dish. In her consideration for others, she remembers that Claude and Hubert don’t like as much spice, so she reserves them bowls that contain less cayenne pepper. It pleases Maggie when others see her as generous, praising her when she shares her gumbo with the neighbors. She also uses the gumbo to have a pacifying effect on the occasions that she offers Orville gumbo soup to distract him from dissatisfaction with Jessie.
Her gumbo continues to serve Maggie’s intentions when it becomes a vehicle for the arsenic she uses to prevent Orville and Mason Burris from inflicting further harm on their families and neighbors and to kill them. The poisoned gumbo symbolizes how Maggie has departed from her customary compassion with her intention to murder Hubert. Her act of self-protection going awry and poisoning Claude highlights how far her motives have grown out of alignment with conventional morality or the sense of justice by which she previously rationalizes her actions. That the food that once helped bring her friends and family together deprives Maggie of her family and her life is one of the greatest ironies of the novel.
The arsenic that Maggie procures from Mrs. Dowler and uses for some of her murders is in one sense a symbol of the dangers of the world Maggie inhabits, a world structured by systemic racism and overt discrimination toward Black Americans. The tool used to control garden pests and eliminate the animals and insects that prey on Mrs. Dowler’s garden plants is Maggie’s first tool for eliminating the pest Oswald has become, repeatedly sexually assaulting her. In another respect, the arsenic represents the power that Maggie has gained through her associations with Mrs. Dowler, which have given her knowledge, polish, and confidence in addition to a generous salary that helped her become financially secure. Still, having the arsenic on hand when she leaves the scene of Oswald’s murder is further evidence of her liberation; Maggie now has a weapon for when she is next attacked or needs to eliminate a threat. The plot takes its tragic turn when Maggie’s means of self-protection means she is willing to use this weapon on someone she loves, prioritizing her feelings of security and protecting her established way of life by sacrificing Hubert’s desire to be acknowledged for who he is and live openly with his partner, Daryl.
The hearse, as the vehicle that bears a coffin from the funeral home to its final resting place, is frequently associated with death and mourning, endings, and darkness. The family business of the funeral home in one respect represents Hubert’s standing in the neighborhood. Uncle Roscoe’s funeral home provides a necessary end-of-life service to their community and becomes a point of continuity within the family when Hubert inherits the business—including the hearse—from his uncle.
The hearse also represents the superstition and unease Maggie initially feels around death and dying; when she and Hubert move into Roscoe’s house, she asks Hubert to leave the hearse parked at the funeral home, wanting to keep associations with death and loss away from their family home. After she murders Daisy, however, Maggie becomes closely associated with death, and while she still feels uncomfortable with the hearse, she recognizes the symbolism in driving this vehicle to Mrs. Dowler’s house to carry out her plan to kill Oswald. Maggie, too, has become a deliverer of death, and she fears the police who watch Mrs. Dowler’s neighborhood will recognize her. Ironically, Maggie’s further murders of Orville and Mason Burris bring in income for her family, as Hubert’s funeral home gets the business of preparing these bodies for burial. The hearse thus represents Maggie’s association with death to benefit her interests and her family’s security.