61 pages • 2 hours read
Tiffany D. JacksonThe Weight of Blood
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022A 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
Maddy’s Hair
Maddy’s hair symbolizes her identity, both in terms of her race as well as her magical powers. At the beginning of the novel, Maddy’s racial identity is a secret to most people around her, and her magical identity is a secret even to herself. This secret is symbolized by Maddy’s hair, which her Papa straightens weekly with a hot comb and which Maddy is not allowed to get wet in public under any circumstances for fear of revealing that she’s biracial. When Maddy’s hair does get wet when they run outside for gym class, it changes physical form, becoming larger, frizzier, and resistant to her attempts to contain it in a ponytail. Maddy’s hair is also the specific aspect of her that the other kids choose to target on that fateful day in Mrs. Morgan’s history class, emphasizing the symbolic connection between Maddy’s hair and her racial identity. The other kids can tell from the change in her hair that she’s been hiding her biracial identity, so their bullying is promptly amplified and racialized. Despite the blatant racist tones of the bullying, the other kids and some adults still claim race is not the issue, demonstrating how the dynamics of Power, Race, and Racism in the Community tend to favor the white status quo until something is actually done to change it.
Maddy’s hair also grows larger on prom night, when it gets wet from the white paint Jules and Brady dumped on her. At this point, everyone already knows Maddy is biracial, but not that she has magical powers. This, too, is revealed, and her hair plays a part. Ironically, Maddy’s father tried to hide one aspect of her identity (her race) in order to protect her from harm, but hiding her identity backfires in a way that upsets Maddy deeply, thereby triggering her secret magic powers. The resulting carnage could have been prevented if Maddy’s father had initially embraced her identity rather than insisting that she hide it.
Telekinesis and Witchcraft
Maddy’s magical abilities symbolize both the power and danger of pent-up emotions. Maddy has greater access to these powers than most people do, a side effect of her sheltered and abusive upbringing. The powers are also linked directly to her emotions, emerging the most when she becomes upset, either because she’s being bullied or because someone is hurting the boy she loves. Although Maddy is able to improve her magical skills through practice, the research she conducts is moot because she’s researching the wrong topic (telekinesis, not witchcraft). The strength of Maddy’s powers and her inability to control them thus both stem from her strange upbringing.
Maddy’s powers cause a great deal of destruction, but it’s implied that there is The Potential for Redemption and Change when Maddy leaves her father’s house in search of her mother. Others like Maddy and her grandmother must exist, and although her mother doesn’t have the same powers, her journals suggest that she knows about the powers and has ideas about how to help Maddy use them for joyful rather than destructive reasons. Papa’s strategy of trying to “love” or pray the witchcraft out of Maddy is just as ineffective and harmful as his strategy of forcing her to pass as white. This causes the powers to come out in their own way, which is much worse than if she had been trained to use them properly (and also to process her emotions properly instead of being sheltered from all social interaction).
1950s-Era Propaganda
Papa is obsessed with 1950s-era propaganda, which symbolizes his (and the town’s) romanticization of a past that was sexist, troubled, violent, and racist. This romanticization of the past, coupled with the convenient omission of violent or disturbing details from history, makes fruitful ground for segregation and other racist practices to continue unquestioned. Papa owns an antique store and won’t use modern technology in the house; for example, they only watch old movies and shows recorded on VHS and DVD. This represents Papa’s desire to transport himself and Maddy back into the past and his desire for Maddy to be like the white women from 1950s-era films.
Maddy dresses up for prom almost exactly like a 1950s-era white movie star, yet Papa still claims she’s a “whore” and a “jezebel.” His 1950s-era propaganda does not represent the past in any realistic way and certainly wasn’t idyllic for many people, such as women or people of color. The town’s antiquated practices are also symbolized through 1950s-era propaganda; although the novel’s main action takes place in 2014, the town becomes a microcosm of the past because it’s so isolated from other places, and multigenerational families pass down the same traditions from generation to generation.
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By Tiffany D. Jackson
