45 pages • 1 hour read
Zilpha Keatley SnyderThe Egypt Game
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1967A 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
Antiques and Letters
April and the Professor are most closely associated with the theme of Rejecting One’s Present Reality. They are both attached to objects from the past. The Professor surrounds himself with antiques. Nothing in his shop is new, and most of his antiques are dust-covered, rendering them even more ancient-looking. The shop originally belongs to his dead wife, further connecting it to a bygone past. April feels drawn to A-Z Antiques while all the other neighborhood children stay away. She is curious about the antiques that the shop holds. Its relics speak to her own inability to move forward, as does her interest in ancient Egypt.
The letters April exchanges with her mother are an even more important connection to the past. April uses her mother’s letters as a lifeline; they represent April’s connection to her old life in Hollywood. April clings to the hope of reuniting with her mother, and rejects her grandmother Caroline as a surrogate parent. While Dorothea’s letters promise a return to the past, her actions tell a different story. She ships all of April’s belongings to Caroline’s apartment. In the novel’s final pages, April receives a letter from Dorothea that convinces her to let go of her past and embrace the present. Enjoying Christmas present with her new friends becomes the greatest gift of all.
Security
Marshall’s plush octopus, Security, functions like a security blanket. The toy symbolizes a need for connection and speaks to the theme of Overcoming Isolation. Although Marshall is a participant in the Egypt Game, he is only four years old. This limits his involvement, and he spends much of his time as a spectator. In this respect, he mirrors the passive role of the Professor. This passivity creates an indirect parallel between the two.
Marshall has no friends his own age. He is forced into the company of five older children without being their peer. He still isn’t adept at reading or writing and limits his verbal communication to infrequent phrases. While none of the other children try to make him feel excluded, Marshall remains isolated. Security is his only tangible connection to something outside himself.
Security’s disappearance offers an unforeseen opportunity for the Professor to leave his isolation. He knows that the loss of Security would devastate Marshall. Having hidden the octopus to keep it from getting wet during a thunderstorm, the Professor is forced to communicate Security’s location by using the Oracle of Thoth. Security has become the impetus for the Professor to tentatively connect with the Egypt Game participants and the surrounding community.
The Egypt Game Props
The Egypt Game begins as an imaginative construct. It has no form in the physical world until April and Melanie flesh it out using props. Objects help ground the game in reality. They also symbolize the theme of Building a Community, as the objects are found or collected from various sources around the neighborhood. Initially, April and Melanie depend on material inadvertently provided by the Professor. They use his storage lot as the site of their temples and appropriate a birdbath and bust of Nefertiti. They pull up patches of weeds to stand for floral offerings.
As their plans grow more elaborate, they must search farther afield in the community for objects to add to their collection. Many of these are culled from neighborhood scrap heaps. They find red glass buttons for Set’s eyes and a peculiar rock to become the Crocodile Stone. Later, when making their Egyptian costumes for Halloween, they solicit discarded jewelry from the neighborhood ladies. In a sense, the neighborhood itself supplies the objects necessary for the game.
The arrival of Ken and Toby provides a new resource; both boys have collected fake skulls, snakes, and other oddities to adorn Set’s altar. Of prime importance is an old stuffed owl, which becomes the Oracle of Thoth. Each object has a story and has been donated by the gamers themselves or someone in their community. All collectively constitute the kingdom of the game. Once the storage lot is padlocked, the children grieve the loss of their props. In the book’s final pages, they receive something much better—engraved keys that give them permanent access to their community’s imaginary kingdom.
