56 pages • 1 hour read
Sara PennypackerPax, Journey Home
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A 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
Wood
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
Author Sara Pennypacker uses wood to symbolize grief in this book. The first time Peter appears in the story, he is dutifully planing wood for his new cabin when he suddenly hits a knot with the plane, causing him to cut his hand. As he looks back at the wood, he thinks, “That’s how knots were: sneaky, hiding under the surface” (5). The other things that repeatedly sneak up on Peter are the grief he has not yet processed and the memories associated with his loss.
To emphasize Peter’s determination to fight the memories off, Pennypacker utilizes tree imagery in his words and thoughts. Peter has a ritual in which he attempts to rewrite painful memories in his mind, replacing actual events with what he feels he should have done. Each time, he feels he must “run the penance right away, or the memory [will] grow roots” (10). Like a tree sinking into the earth as it grows, Peter fears that his past will sink its roots into him, permanent and strong.
However, the sight of a dead log that is now home to a community of ants foreshadows that Peter will have life and love in his heart again. Peter looks closely at it, noting, “There would be chambers for eggs, storage vaults for food, a room for the queen—a whole community expanding inside this dead log. A little crack was all it took. This log hadn’t seen it coming” (144-45). This is precisely what happens to Peter by the end of the book. Although he tries to harden his heart, he can’t help but make room for his beloved Sliver, Pax’s daughter.
Water
One of the motifs in Pax, Journey Home is water. The prime goal of the Water Warriors is to restore the river to its natural, pre-war condition, and the river is almost a character in and of itself. Sometimes the characters personify it, giving it and other natural elements human qualities and emotions. For example, Pax teaches his daughter, “Water always defeats fire, and so fire respects its territory” (88). Both the animal and human characters have a deep respect for the water and acknowledge that the river is a powerful force that is responsible for life but that, when tampered with, can also bring harm or even death.
The polluting of the water systems directly ties in with one of the book’s themes: The Role of Care and Kindness in Recovery. The still pond “used to be teeming with life, a little gem. But the Resistance dumped in a bunch of heavy metals after they blew up the bridge, and now nothing lives in it. Nothing” (94). Now, it is the human’s responsibility to work as a group to clean up the mess. Similarly, after the war, Peter’s heart is like a still pond, as he tries everything to keep love for others out of it. Jade, Samuel, and Vola all do their best to help in the aftermath of Peter’s grief.
Father’s Ashes
When Peter leaves Vola’s home to join the Water Warriors, his “backpack contain[s] the cardboard box with his father’s ashes. As they [hike], the box thump[s] his back with each step, and Peter imagine[s] it as a reassuring pat” (80). The ashes are symbolic of the loss of his father and the weight Peter has carried ever since he died. Like his memories of his father, although he finds their presence “reassuring,” they are also a burden.
The figurative heaviness of the ashes carried on Peter’s back for so long turns into a literal lightness as Peter scatters them on his mother’s grave. He watches as “[t]he grit sift[s] over the grave gently as snow, and then the softer ash float[s] down. It seem[s] to melt into the stone and the long grass and the flowers, as if it had been waiting to be here all along” (225). Peter knows that part of his father’s hardness later in life was the result of grieving for Peter’s mother; upon being returned to her, he becomes soft again. Simultaneously, Peter decides to read the letter from Private Thomas, confirming that in his last days, his father showed kindness toward, and ultimately died for, other people. Peter has relieved himself of the load and truly feels that his father’s actions, and his own, would have made his mother proud.
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