52 pages • 1 hour read
Ana HuangThe Striker
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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
Racing
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses violence and sexual content.
Asher Donovan’s car racing habit is a motif representing his attraction to danger as a means of regulating his emotions. Asher loves to race because it gives him a thrilling high that’s as satisfying as competing on the football pitch. The “powerful growl of the engine” sharpens his senses while dulling his anxieties (177). When he’s racing his friends, teammates, or rivals, he imagines he’s experiencing “what astronauts [experience] during a rocket launch—acceleration so powerful, it press[es] them into their seats through sheer force” (179). Tasting danger in this way exhilarates Asher and helps him to escape his trauma. For years, he believes that racing is a mere hobby that lets him “blow off steam” and temporarily forget his football worries. However, Scarlett DuBois and Ron Donovan ultimately help him to understand that he uses racing as a form of self-harm.
Scarlett urges Asher to stop racing because she doesn’t want him to keep putting himself in danger. She feels that Asher’s racing habit is proof that he doesn’t love himself, and she refuses to “stand by and watch [him] self-destruct” (503). Shortly thereafter, Ron claims that racing represents Asher’s death wish and is his way of punishing himself for failing to save his late friend Teddy. Therefore, when Asher gives up racing, he’s giving up his self-destructive habits and unsustainable coping mechanisms to pursue healthier forms of healing.
Scarlett’s Accident
Scarlett’s car accident is a symbol of the long-term effects of past trauma. Five years prior to the narrative present, Scarlett “was on [her] way to a performance when [another] person ran a red light and collided with the taxi [she] was in. [She] woke up in the hospital with a punctured lung, dislocated hip, and a dozen other issues” (62). Half a decade has passed since the tragic incident, but Scarlett is still dealing with the emotional, physical, and psychological fallout. The accident and her associated injuries effectively ended her dancing career and left her with “chronic pain [as] a result of nerve damage” (62). Rafael Pessoa also broke up with her when she was undergoing surgery—an event she associates with the accident and that also contributes to her traumatic experiences.
When Scarlett starts opening up to Asher about the accident, she begins to heal from her trauma. Sharing these tragic events with him causes her “piercing pain” to dull “into a general tenderness” (62). Articulating what she lived through is a way for her to process her ongoing pain. Asher allows her to grieve what she lost because of the accident but also encourages her not to let the incident impede her life in the present or her dreams for the future.
Ballet Showcase
The RAB staff showcase is a symbol of personal desire. When RAB first announces the upcoming show, Scarlett has no intention of auditioning despite her longing to do so. She believes it “doesn’t matter what [she] want[s]” because she’s convinced her injuries, surgeries, and physical therapy have sabotaged her “mobility and flexibility” (105, 106). The showcase thus represents Scarlett’s seemingly unreachable dreams.
With Asher’s encouragement, Scarlett realizes that participating in the showcase—and thus realizing her desires—isn’t as impossible as she once thought. He reminds her that the comparatively low stakes of the staff showcase present an opportunity to try dancing again without the pressures that come with performing at the highest level. At first, Scarlett pushes herself too hard to prepare for the performance. She’s convinced that to achieve her dreams, she has to compromise her well-being. After she injures herself in training, she realizes that she can care for herself while pursuing her dreams. The novel uses the showcase to suggest that Scarlett’s desires are always within reach if she pursues them in a healthy manner and seeks help from her loved ones along the way.
Asher’s Private Studio
Asher’s private ballet studio is a symbol of Emotional Intimacy as a Means of Overcoming Trauma. After the paparazzi storm RAB, Asher constructs this studio in the basement of his palatial estate. When he first shows it to Scarlett, she expects a “standard room with mirrors, maybe, or gray concrete and a barre” (74). Instead “of a basic workout area,” she discovers the “full-blown professional ballet studio” of her dreams, “only even better” (74). The space is equipped with hardwood floors, “a sprung floor,” “a wall of windows,” “a double row of barres [along] the perimeter of the room,” a “black Steinway piano and state-of-the-art sound system” (75). These aspects of the setting make Scarlett feel at home. The studio is at once awe-inspiring and familiar. Therefore, when she and Asher train in this space, they feel comfortable to grow their intimate connection on their own terms. They can move their bodies, pursue their goals, and engage in conversation without fear of intrusion and in an environment that feels welcoming and secure.
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By Ana Huang
