44 pages • 1 hour read
Sue Monk KiddThe Invention of Wings
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A 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
Flight as Freedom From Bondage: Wings/Birds/Blackbirds
The motif of flight as freedom from bondage is carried through the novel by many flight symbols, including the black triangles representing blackbird wings in Mauma’s quilts, and the many feathers that Mauma and Handful collect in order to stuff their quilts. The motif is repeated in Sarah’s recognition that she comprises one wing in the abolition work that she and Nina perform, while Nina forms the other.
On the first page of the novel, Handful’s voice retells her mother’s story of a time when African-American people still lived in Africa and could fly. Even as a child, Handful knows that this story isn’t true, but as she grows up, she begins to understand the message symbolized by the story; her people were once free and remain a symbol of hope that they can be free again. Further, Handful understands a deeper meaning contained in the blackbird wing quilt: You don’t need to fly to be free. Mental freedom and an identity apart from slavery is Charlotte’s greatest gift to her daughter.
Sarah, as Handful remarks, struggles to be mentally free, though she has physical freedom. Handful brings this to her attention and changes Sarah’s life. Through this conversation with Handful, Sarah realizes that she has the power to free herself from the mental and emotional bonds that keep her from living the life she envisions for herself. As a direct result, she leaves Charleston to live an independent life in the North. Handful brings mental freedom to Sarah, who in turn helps Handful achieve physical freedom.
Wings, as alluded to by the title of novel, can be invented, just as Sarah and Handful both invent freedom for themselves. Furthermore, as an abolitionist, Sarah advocates and works for freedom for others who are enslaved.
Silver Fleur de Lis Button
Sarah saves a button from her 11th birthday dress as a reminder and symbol of the night she decides that she wants to be a lawyer, and she tries to free Handful. These dreams are tarnished for her when her father cruelly deprives her of his library and squashes all her hopes of becoming a lawyer. She throws the button away, but Handful saves it. Handful, in a gesture of true friendship, returns the button to her many years later, as it has now been transformed into a symbol of hope, signifying their joint hopes that they can escape the repressive system in which they are trapped. The hope of the button is realized when Sarah is able to first pull herself out of her mental bondage and later help Handful pull herself out of literal bondage.
Quilting and Sewing
In this novel, the domestic arts of quilting and sewing form a complex motif representing storytelling and rebellion, through individual symbols, such as Mauma’s story quilt and Handful’s repurposing of the Grimké’s mourning clothes as escape clothing.
Because Mauma cannot read or write, the story quilt expresses what Mauma wants to be known of her life story. The act of sewing her truth, including quilt squares detailing her punishments as well as her joyful relationships with her children, allows Mauma to celebrate and record her own life, as well as leave behind stories for her children. As Handful describes her mother’s story quilt, “Mauma had sewed where she came from, who she was, what she loved, the things she’d suffered, and the things she’d hoped. She’d found a way to tell it” (154). When Handful escapes to the North, she brings the blackbird wing and story quilts with her.
Mauma’s act of quilting also operates as rebellion and subversion of the slave system, through recording her treatment during slavery. Little missus’ reaction to seeing the quilt—guilt and rationalization—confirm the emotional resonance and clarity of the images. Other acts involving sewing are equally rebellious, including Handful’s sewing Demark Vesey’s list of rebel’s names into a quilt, and Mauma hiding the money she was saving to use to buy her and Handful’s freedom into the layers of a quilt.
As a hiding place for valuable things, quilting participates in slave survival techniques, because the quilt, lowly, common and domestic, forms a method of hiding contraband and personal objects from the masters. In a similar fashion, Handful’s tailoring Missus’ and little missus’ mourning clothes to fit Sky and herself for their escape beautifully participates in an ironic twist on this concept: They—as contraband—are hiding themselves in their mistresses’ clothing in order to escape from slavery. Handful’s talent with a needle subverts the intention of slavery to keep her bound; she frees herself using it. As Mauma explains, “you got to figure out which end of the needle you’re gon be, the one that’s fastened to the thread or the end that pierces the cloth” (337). By making herself into the pointy end of the needle, Handful achieves freedom.
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