64 pages • 2 hours read
Boy, Snow, Bird
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Part 3, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 1 Summary
Part 3 picks up immediately after Part 2 ends; however, the narrative duties shift back to Boy. Boy is feeling the passage of time; she doesn’t “know who or what anybody is anymore” (277). Arturo is balding but “lionlike”; Ted Murray has grown progressively cheaper, and Boy doesn’t understand how Webster could love Ted, but doesn’t want to ask. It bothers her that marriage means she must lose part of herself and wonders how “anybody [can] love anybody else for more than five minutes” (278).
Thanksgiving dinner is an awkward affair. Gerald eats heavily, in order to avoid talking; Vivian speaks platitudes at Clara; John drinks heavily, to avoid feeling unwelcome; Agnes keeps “Snow’s left hand prisoner” (279). Boy begrudgingly respects Olivia’s stubbornness, a trait she sees in herself.
John tells the family about his youthful antics, which included purposely following white women down deserted streets at night in order to scare them. He thought this was hilarious until one woman mistook him for a prostitute and asked him how much it would cost to sleep with him, which “took the thrill out of the game, and he stopped playing it” (280). Only Arturo, Clara, and Boy find it funny; the rest of the family appears to be distressed by the antics. Gerald recalls the relatively-recent incident of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy who was lynched for whistling at a white woman. “Didn’t you value your life,” he asks John. “Didn’t you see that if the authorities didn’t give a damn about you, you had to give that much more of a damn about yourself?” (281-82). Arturo tries to defend John, but John stops him and explains that he wasn’t trying to brag; the women would have been scared regardless, so “why not make a joke out of it?” (282).
Bird doesn’t understand the exchange; she asks for a pen, but Boy refuses to let her go get one. Bird is close to the age Emmett Till was when he was killed; Boy knows Bird will find out anyway, but wants to delay it as much as she can. Boy believes three things regarding Bird and race relations in America: first, no matter what, she’s on Bird’s side; second, “it’s not whiteness itself that sets Them against Us, but the worship of whiteness”; and third, “we beat Them […] by declining to worship” (283).
When it comes time to give thanks, Agnes thanks Clara and John for taking care of Snow for Agnes and Olivia; Clara rebukes her, telling her that they did it for Snow, not for them. Boy notes that “Clara didn’t raise her voice, but the aftermath was just as if she’d yelled and smashed her wineglass” (283).
John begins to tell another “carefully edited” story, but Bird notes something in Vivian’s cranberry sauce and asks what it is. Vivian tries to hide it, but Clara tells her that it’s hair. Vivian is mortified—her hair is shedding. Olivia asks what’s happening, and Vivian tells her she believes it’s just the lye she uses in it. Olivia tells her that she always overdoes things, but Clara rebukes her mother: “So tell us, what did Viv overdo […] Was she supposed to pass as white, but only just? Was she supposed to come top of her class every time, but only just?” (285).
Vivian, fortified by her sister and the wine, tries to similarly rebuke her mother, but Gerald cuts them off and argues that they only tried to do the best for children. Clara questions that people only have to look the part, that Vivian’s hard work had nothing to do with her success, but Olivia tells her to “wake up from [her] dream world” and asks her how many African-American women make Vivian’s salary. John accedes Olivia’s point; Clara argues that passing isn’t the way, but Olivia argues that the point is moot coming from someone who isn’t able to pass.
Everyone grows still and quiet. Boy notes that Snow’s and Bird’s expressions are exactly the same.
Boy volunteers to take care of the dishes after dinner; at Clara’s insistence (and over the objections of her grandparents), Snow goes to the kitchen to help her. She wants to ask about her and Bird; she’s surprised to discover that she wants them to be friends.
They wash the dishes in silence until Snow asks if they were like this together at one point, only with her sitting on the counter. Snow then angrily punches the water; she asks Boy to close the door, as it isn’t like her to get mad, a statement Boy questions to no response.
Boy asks Snow if she feels she has treated Snow poorly, which Snow does. Boy suggests that they make up “the way kids do it”; while they talk, they look at their “reflections rippled in the water, stretching to breaking point” (291). Boy means that Snow should hurt her. Snow at first refuses, and when Boy grabs her hand and makes her, she tries to claim it’s over and done with. Boy says no; Snow tries to run, but Boy chases her around the room, holding her wrists and making Snow hit her until Snow begins hitting her in earnest (while apologizing).
Collapsed on the floor, Snow tells Boy that she hates Olivia, which doesn’t surprise Boy. Snow tells Boy that she once asked Olivia if she was surprised that Boy sent Snow, and not Bird, away to live with Clara, and Olivia replies by telling her a story about a white family who fostered a baby gorilla by giving it to an African woman. Neither is sure what the story means; Olivia’s explanation is that she can’t “waste a lot of time marveling at the decisions of white folks,” and that “there’s nothing any of them do that can surprise her” (293).
Boy calls Mia to tell her about Frank’s visit. Mia tells her they need to talk and comes over the next morning. Mia hands her an envelope containing the birth certificate of Boy’s mother, Frances Amelia Novak. Mia was the one who told Frank where to find Boy; she wanted to give him the chance to tell Boy the truth, but because he chose not to, Mia will.
Following her abortion, Mia wanted to write a piece about women’s experiences when they don’t want to be mothers; she had several people in mind, but she thought perhaps she might track down Boy’s mother, just in case she was alive. She searched first for Boy’s father, then tracked down Boy’s birth certificate, discovering that no father is named, and that Frank Novak doesn’t officially exist.
Mia researched Boy’s mother. Frances was a highly intelligent, well-educated student of psychology who researched sexuality. Mia met with four of Frances’s former friends, who were also her lovers, and were also interested in finding out what had happened to her. The year Frances was supposed to earn her doctorate, she disappeared; the last anyone saw of her, she was asking a friend for a loan.
Mia discovered from Frank—who, it should be clear by now, was Frances—that Frances had been raped by an acquaintance. She had gone to stay at a women’s shelter following the rape but was asked to leave because she was “demoralizing the other women who ‘had suffered their own violations but were determined to continue their lives as women in spite of them’” (303). Frances began seeing Frank in the mirror, so she changed her appearance and began living as Frank.
Boy asks Mia not to write about this, and while Mia tells her she’ll do anything else for her, she has to write about it.
Part 3, Chapter 2 Summary
Mia shares Bird’s notes with Boy, which only deepens her discomfort with the situation. Boy remembers the thin walls of their apartment building growing up, and how many terrible things she heard through the walls without doing anything, believing that they “all got a little less human so [they] could keep living together” (307). She latches onto one quotation in the notes: “It was the one time in my life I wished I was a woman,” believing it means that “Frances had wanted to come back” (307).
Boy asks Arturo and Alecto Fletcher how to break a spell; Arturo doesn’t know, and Mrs. Fletcher tells her that “magic spells only work until the person under the spell is really and honestly tired of it. It ends when continuing becomes simply too ghastly a prospect” (308). Boy remains awake, trying to remember anything maternal about her father, but can only remember the violence; she tries to remember something feminine about him, instead, but likewise struggles.
Snow arrives, and the two share cocoa. It turns out that Snow is a private detective of sorts—she follows unfaithful wives in order to help their husbands build cases for divorce. She dreads returning; Snow tells her to stay a while longer, and that if she gets fired, it’s probably okay because the job isn’t right for her anyway.
Part 3, Chapter 3 Summary
Boy decides that she wants to meet “Frances.” Arturo tries to talk her out of it, but concedes that if he were in her place, he would likely want to meet her as well. Boy says that Arturo “knows this terrain. He’s been handling the difference between the mother you want and the mother you get for years” (312). For a moment, Boy compares Arturo and Charlie, who “would’ve been full of useless pity” (312).
Mia arrives; the two go to get Bird and Snow. Snow is lying in her bedroom; they hear Julia singing, but see no record player, then realize that Bird is outside mimicking Julia. Boy, furious, asks Bird if she’s “trying to drive [her] sister crazy,” to which Bird replies that she’s “trying to see if she’s a phony or not” (314).
Boy explains that they’re going to New York “to go see somebody” who needs them, and they need her (315). As they drive to the bus station, Olivia questions them, but they get her to step aside and continue on their way.
Part 3, Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Thanksgiving dinner serves as a final commentary on race relations and passing in America, as we don’t return to the theme following the first chapter. That said, we do not get closure of any kind, only a tense, uncertain peace between the family members. John gleefully tells stories about youthful exploits that could have easily gotten him killed in the South. Arturo, who has spent his whole life in the North living as a white man, and Bird, who is white, laugh, while Gerald, who chose to move to the North and pass precisely because of the dangers John flaunted, is revolted by John’s actions. John’s defense is an existential one: the oppression of African Americans in the South is absurd, so he might as well try to have some fun with it. However, it’s easy to see why Gerald finds it all so disgusting, as John is and was cheerfully taunting something that terrifies Gerald. It’s important to note that Gerald, until this point, has generally not taken strong positions on these matters, leaving the opinions to Olivia.
With Clara present, we also see pushback from Vivian. As previously mentioned, Vivian is successful in her own right as an attorney, and, as Olivia points out (and not incorrectly) that regardless of talent, Vivian would not be as successful as she is without passing. However, passing has also caused Vivian a lot of pain: it is likely the reason she remains unmarried, and the chemicals she uses in order to soften her African features are damaging her body. (The lye that she mentions was commonly used as a hair relaxer; it is also potentially damaging, as it can burn or irritate skin.) Clara believes passing is wrong, but as Olivia points out, Clara is unable to pass herself, the implication being that she is not looking at it impartially. Once again, we are at an impasse, but this is the novel’s only sense of closure: when living in an oppressive society, the choices the oppressed make in order to survive may sometimes be uncomfortable, but still defensible. The family sits in uncomfortable silence after dinner, but they still sit together, at least for now.
We do, on the other hand, get a semblance of closure regarding Boy and Snow. Allowing Bird to narrate the events leading up to this positioned Boy as detached or even cold regarding Snow; one might have continued to believe that Boy remains unremorseful about her decision. This only reinforces the impact of these chapters, however; we see that Boy still has her misgivings about Snow, but, like her daughter, believes that Snow was placed on a pedestal, rather than climbing up herself. It is society that privileges Snow’s beauty, and while Snow makes her own contributions to it, it is not of her own making. However, Boy recognizes that she wronged Snow as a child, and she discovers that she wants her sisters to be friends. Further, she wants reconciliation with Snow.
Where the novel wraps up earlier conversations, however, it also opens up new ones, as we discover that Frank Novak is not Boy’s father, but boy’s mother, and “passing” as a man. If the novel’s statements about race and passing are left ambiguous, its commentary on transgender people is unclear, at best, and problematic at worst.
Boy refuses to accept that Frank is now a man, asking Mia to stop referring to Frank using male pronouns (i.e., she insists on mis-gendering Frank), and the novel concludes with Boy, Mia, Bird, and Snow leaving for New York, with Boy’s belief being that they need to help Frank reconnect with, and perhaps transition back to, Frances.
A charitable reading is that Boy, having spent her entire life angry at her abusive father, truly believes that Frances as a mother would have been a much better parent, and that if Frank becomes Frances again, she will finally have a loving parent. Likewise, we might surmise that Frank’s treatment of Boy, which Boy always thought was meant to protect her from something vague, is either Frank lashing out at the product of his rape or Frank ensuring that Boy maintains a healthy fear of men throughout her life. Perhaps these are true, and perhaps Boy’s aim is to show Frank that he doesn’t have to be scared anymore. However, as Mia points out, Frank has been Frank for far longer than he was ever Frances; further, whereas Boy is treating it as a delusion, Mia explains that Frank is perfectly sane and just an awful person, which may be the novel’s way of deconstructing the idea that transgender people are really just mentally ill. Regardless, as the novel ends here, these questions remain open and unanswered.
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