50 pages • 1 hour read
Good Bad Girl: A Novel
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Symbols & Motifs
Ladybug Rings
Edith creates the three ladybug rings to symbolize her connection to Clio and the baby Eleanor. Edith chooses the ladybug to represent Eleanor because the child, like the insects, has “spots”—freckles, in Eleanor’s case. Later in the narrative, Edith tells Clio a deeper reason for choosing the ladybug as a familial symbol:
[L]adybugs are so prolific, so determined to ensure their future and protect their legacy, that they sometimes give birth to pregnant ladybugs. Their daughters are born ready to have more daughters. Generation after generation, repeating and reliving the same lives as the last, never changing their spots (190-91).
Per Edith’s explanation, the ladybug symbolizes both the persistent desire to survive and the inheritance of what past generations have experienced. In the case of the women in this family, that inheritance includes trauma, estrangement, and self-loathing. The strangeness—by human standards—of giving birth to a child that is already pregnant also speaks to Reimagining the Expectations of Motherhood. Frankie, for example, is both Patience’s mother and sister—a hybrid relationship that “shouldn’t” be possible and yet works.
At the start of the novel, Patience is reunited with one of the ladybug rings. This begins Patience’s journey toward discovering the truth of her past and healing her relationship with her mother(s). Toward the end of the novel, Clio is also reunited with a ladybug ring—the one that was on her daughter when she was abducted. The re-entry of this ring into Clio’s life marks Clio’s mental shift toward being able to come to terms with her past. Just as the rings quite literally bring these women back into each other’s lives, the rings also symbolize increased resilience in the face of intergenerational trauma, including the ability to work through that trauma as a family unit.
The Black Sheep
The Black Sheep is the name of Frankie’s houseboat. Frankie grew up on this boat with her adoptive mother, who was emotionally abusive and whose life as a sex worker left Frankie with some trauma. Frankie also raised her daughter on this boat, citing the boat’s ability to move quickly from place to place along the Thames as one of its primary virtues. The boat’s name is a reference to the expression “the black sheep of the family,” a person who is an outcast because their beliefs or actions differ from those of the rest of the family. The boat therefore physically embodies Frankie’s feelings of separation and isolation from every family she’s been a part of. On that note, it is significant that Frankie lives on a boat: It is separated from the rest of the nearby family living units, relegated instead to an itinerant and unstable existence on the Thames. At the same time, the boat protects Frankie and Patience/Nellie from the river and from any outside forces that might come looking for them. In this way, the boat is both a symbol of Frankie’s status as an outsider and of Frankie’s attempts to protect her life with her daughter.
By the end of the novel, Frankie and Patience/Nellie still live on the boat, but The Black Sheep is different now: “The narrow boat looks completely transformed, and not just because of our new surroundings on this quieter stretch of the Thames. It’s still called The Black Sheep but has been painted turquoise” (301). The name “The Black Sheep” has also been extended to the independent bookstore that Frankie has opened. The fact that “The Black Sheep” name now encompasses both Frankie’s itinerant home and her brick-and-mortar bookstore speaks to how she has changed: She no longer feels like she’s being pursued and needs to run. The bright painting of the boat suggests that Frankie no longer feels that she and Nellie need to hide; they can be proud of the life they lead, and they don’t need to conceal it from anyone.
Paper Cuttings
Patience’s paper cuttings are pervasive: She produces them and adorns her apartment with them, Jude takes them from her and sells them, and Edith, Frankie, and Clio all collect them. The cuttings are first and foremost a reflection of Patience herself. The art form speaks to Patience’s frugality and creativity: It requires very few materials, but its results are made beautiful and desirable through Patience’s creative powers. Patience’s obsessive attention to the cuttings also demonstrates that she has found a more productive outlet for her anxious and obsessive tendencies than either Clio or Frankie has.
The cuttings themselves serve the novel’s plot: It’s only because Jude gives Clio one for Christmas that Frankie discovers the connections between Clio, Jude, and Patience. Jude gives Clio this gift in a rare moment of nostalgic sentimentality; he tells Clio that he did it because he missed her since she was “more of a mum to [him] than Mum ever was” (142). Here, the paper cutting speaks to the way that beauty and creativity can break through the walls of resentment and fear that so many of the characters have had to raise around themselves. The paper cuttings symbolize Patience’s insistent desire to bring something beautiful into the world, which ripples out to affect those around her; in the end, she ends up bringing what’s left of her family back together.
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