60 pages • 2 hours read
Margarita MontimoreOona Out of Order
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A 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
Guitars
Guitars are a constant throughout the novel, but their symbolism varies as Oona evolves. In the beginning of the novel, the guitars on Oona’s wall are associated with her boyfriend Dale and Oona’s love for him, but Oona’s suspicion that she would be a good guitarist hints that they are in fact symbols of Oona’s unfulfilled potential and the importance of Being True to Oneself; they represent the passion she has set aside at the request of her boyfriend. When her husband, Edward, steals some of her special guitars, he is essentially robbing her of her potential to be self-confident and follow her passion.
Later, when Madeleine suggests that Dale betrayed Oona by keeping her from the guitar, the revelation prompts Oona to get lessons. This unlocks something inside her; when she embraces her love of the instrument, she also embraces her own power and finds the strength to divorce Edward. The next time she encounters Dale, she firmly tells him that she will keep playing the guitar even if it means she isn’t in the band and loses his love. Her refusal to compromise her true self shows the dramatic change in her character. The guitar now symbolizes her confidence and fulfilled potential.
Dale’s Watch
The watch Dale gives Oona is a symbol of the world she had, the past she wants to recover, and the man who is her first love. It is a promise of happiness that she clings to, so when it is stolen, she is bereft. When she learns her husband was responsible, she is even more devastated, as he hasn’t just stolen a prized possession but also her hope of returning to love and happiness.
As Oona progresses and learns to embrace her life as it happens, she stops yearning for that 1982 party and, to a certain extent, Dale. The watch—a reminder of time’s passage rather than the present moment—simultaneously fades from view; she frames it and puts it on the wall to be admired from afar. Other trinkets and pieces of jewelry increase in importance as Oona learns to value her mother and son as much as her first boyfriend. It is only when her watch has become a distant second in importance to the tattoo symbolizing her son (which also lives on her wrist) that Oona can go back to the party with Dale and enjoy a healthy, less obsessive relationship. She can live in the moment and enjoy her time with Dale while knowing there are other loves waiting for her.
The Brownstone
Oona’s house is a constant in her life, just like her son and mother. In fact, it is the most stable and solid of the three. While the chairs rotate, everything else remains unchanged; Oona barely notices a difference in the neighborhood after the first leap of 33 years. That the solid, unchanging element of stone is in the home’s very name is significant. It is a stable structure unlike the other symbols in her life: the ever-changing water, the jacket that doesn’t always fit, and the vanishing watch.
It is significant that when Oona lets Edward inside, the house no longer feels secure; the implication is that her broader stability is in jeopardy. When he robs the house, he also symbolically robs Oona of her self-assurance, and it takes a year of travel before she can return and feel secure in her home again.
Water and Boats
Water, boats, and drowning are recurring motifs that stem from Oona’s father dying in a boating accident. Since witnessing his death, Oona has been afraid of boats and water and associates them with trauma and loss. For example, when she tries to follow her mother in a polar bear plunge on the day of her initial leap, she feels like she is drowning both physically and emotionally, having learned that Dale is dead. Kate Bush’s song about a woman trapped under ice provides the title for this section and reflects Oona’s feeling of being confused and overwhelmed by her time slips. Also during this section, however, Kenzie gets Oona out of bed by playing another Kate Bush album—one about a woman stranded at sea. The music intrigues Oona, and Kenzie assures her that the woman in the album gets rescued, giving Oona hope.
After Oona’s horrible years with Edward, she goes on a healing trip with her mother. Her determination to start Enjoying the Good Moments and Being Here Now, built on her experience facing fears in earlier chapters, enables her to get on a boat. After she does so, the water motif disappears from the novel, suggesting that her fear around her father’s death and her own time traveling has abated.
The Leather Jacket
When Oona wears Dale’s leather jacket, she refers to it as her “New York City armor” (15); she tells him it makes her feel safe by reminding her of his love and protection. While the jacket is a symbol of this love and security, it’s also a love that is too heavy. She notes that the jacket stifles her, like Dale’s restriction of her talents with the guitar. It also doesn’t help her confront her fear as much as it allows her to hide from it.
Once Oona leaps, she finds that the jacket, now over 30 years old, doesn’t fit her. Symbolically, her armor no longer works, and she retreats to bed afraid, confused, and missing Dale and the security of his love. She clutches the jacket, attempting to get everything back and noting that the older version of herself seems to have created her own armor by gaining weight; she does not realize this physical change symbolizes her self-reliance and confidence. In the future, she will not need anyone else to help her feel secure.
When Oona leaps a second time, she goes back in time enough that the jacket fits again, but instead of relying on Dale’s protection, she puts it aside, trusting in her own drug-fueled self-confidence as she moves through the party scene of the 1990s. It doesn’t always work—at one point, she ends up beaten up in her wool coat—but she feels elated that she can survive on her own. After this, the leather coat only reappears many years later when Oona sees one on Peter Han, another guitar player. This time, the jacket continues to symbolize love, but without the smothering protection. Notably, Peter never puts the jacket on Oona; he is a potential love match who will allow her to be fully herself.
