Save Me a Seat

Joe thinks of himself in terms of food, believing humanity to be best represented in a peanut M&M: “Peanut M&M’s come in red, green, yellow, brown, orange, and blue, and they all taste exactly the same” (70-71). Joe uses food analogies in order to explain to people how he conceptualizes the world. In this case, Joe believes that while people may all have outward differences, they are still basically the same on the inside. However, Joe also uses peanut M&Ms to show how most people assume things that are often untrue.

Eventually, Peanut M&Ms are able to build a friendship between Ravi and Joe, despite the two students’ external differences. When Joe sees the peanut M&M reappear in his glass dish after Dillon stole his original candy, he thinks:

Is there really a blue peanut M&M sitting in the glass dish on my desk? The answer is yes, but what’s weird is that it’s not the same one I brought from home. I’m positive. That was a single; this is a double. Those are rare—especially the blue ones, which is how I know who put it there (190).

The authors use food in general and peanut M&Ms in particular in order to demonstrate how food has the ability to bring people together. A small act of kindness can jumpstart a friendship, leading to possible unforeseen benefits. 

Throughout the novel, names are used to indicate a variety of characteristics about Joe and Ravi. Names are considered incredibly important for both boys, especially because at school, neither of them are called by their correct names. Ravi’s name is continuously mispronounced, both by his classmates and by his teachers, whereas Joe is usually called by a nickname that he does not like. While names undoubtedly symbolize an aspect of the character’s identity, they also demonstrate a similarity between both Joe and Ravi: they are called by names that are not their own. This demonstrates how differently they are perceived within their social environments in comparison to their conceptions of self-identity. Here, names present identity as being multi-faceted, a combination of both the self and one’s external environments.

Of course, this means that names can exist as a source of humiliation for both boys. Dillon repeatedly uses his obnoxious nickname for Joe in order to bully him, and later decides to call Ravi “Curryhead” in order to bully Ravi as well. This association of names with bullying demonstrates the effects that name-calling and names in general can have upon a person’s identity. In Ravi’s case, his transformation from the sun to Curryhead demonstrates his social fall, how his identity has negatively transformed from a Dillon at his old school to a loser at Albert Einstein. Names can thereby become a source of conflict for these boys, as both Joe and Ravi find frustration at the tension that exists between their self-perceptions and the perceptions of other people concerning their identities. Joe is the first of the two boys to recognize the frustration that this brings to the other character, as he notices fairly early on that Ravi is not being called by the correct name. In this way, names also serve to illustrate how Joe is different from many of his classmates, including Ravi, by demonstrating how well he hears and the empathy that arises as a result of his close listening.

Names also serve to solidify the point of view the authors seek to capture in the novel. The novel is narrated by two fifth grade boys, and so names help reiterate this point. For example, both boys’ parents don’t really have first names; rather, they are mostly referenced in relation to the kids themselves. Similarly, teachers do not have first names; they are referred to exclusively by their last names. This absence of names points to the perspective of the narration as the authors are trying to be true to writing from the perspective of fifth grade boys. As such, names also serve as a narrative technique in order to give the narration more credibility. 

Bud, Not Buddy is the name of a real book read by many fifth graders in the United States. It is about an orphan named Bud Caldwell who has an interesting way of speaking that entices its readers. In Save Me a Seat, the book serves to connect both boys as it showcases some of the similarities between Ravi and Joe. Both Ravi and Joe like to read this book and do so independently of Mrs. Beam’s prompting. They both read by themselves ahead of the class because they both seem fairly involved in academics, albeit to varying levels of success. Although the title of the book is used as a source of humiliation for Joe, the book itself represents the ways in which students relate what they are reading to the world around them. When Ravi feels trapped in Miss Frost’s room, he asks, “Will I be trapped here forever like Bud Caldwell was trapped in the shed with the angry bees” (79-80).

The authors are clearly attempting to make a case for the continued importance and relevance of reading fiction in modern schools. Fiction not only expands one’s intellect but also increases a student’s ability to empathize with other people and the student begins to find similarities between their world and the world of the characters within the book. For Ravi, this book represents an important stepping stone from which he is able to relate his own life to that of another person, even if the other person is a fictional character. This then allows Ravi to develop the empathy that transforms his character at the end of the novel.

Winking arises repeatedly throughout the novel, mostly to showcase the differences that arise dependent upon social situations. In the beginning of the novel, Ravi believes that Dillon winks at him because Dillon wants to become friends with Ravi. However, Joe later exposes that winking is one of Dillon’s tells before he is about to bully someone: “Dillon always winks when he’s up to no good” (63). In this way, winking can be seen differently depending upon cultural differences or differences in environments. Similarly, Ravi assumes that Dillon’s winking means that he wants to become friends with him, although later learns that winking, to Dillon, means exactly the opposite. As Ravi becomes more comfortable with the environment at Albert Einstein, he appropriates winking as an aspect of his behavior when he is trying to teach Dillon a lesson. After Dillon incorrectly guesses that Ravi’s self-reflection project notecard belongs to someone else, Ravi says, “I wink at him and smile” (198). This demonstrates a turning point within the novel, wherein Ravi and Joe have decided to give Dillon a taste of his own medicine. They decide to stand up for themselves and appropriate some of his mannerisms in order to do that. Ravi winking is his way of saying that he has figured Dillon out and will not permit Dillon to bully him or Joe any longer. In this way, winking demonstrates that the tables have been turned and it is now Dillon’s turn to be humiliated.