48 pages • 1 hour read
Where the Lilies Bloom
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Symbols & Motifs
Wildcrafting
Wildcrafting is a motif that represents the Luthers’ values for living a dignified, good, meaningful life. Wildcrafting underscores the family’s connection to the land; the family’s livelihood is attached to, and in tandem with, the rhythms of the land. When the earth is blossoming, the Luthers are able to gather a bounty and make money. When the earth his hibernating, frozen with winter, the Luthers too are more insular, inside of their homes and relying on what they have accrued in spring. Wildcrafting strengthens the rural aspect of their identity, which is an integral aspect of the Luther family’s self-image.
Wildcrafting also represents the Luther family’s value of education. The ending sentences of the novel emphasize the connection between wildcrafting and education: “The mountains and valleys of North Carolina are rich in these wild medicine plants. We discovered them and it was a fine education” (174). Throughout the novel, school is viewed as the place for education; it is the place where Mary Call can undo her ignorance. In the end, Mary Call embraces the natural education of the land. This education is augmented by her mother’s book, A Guide to Wildcrafting. Thus, wildcrafting blends both institutional education with the knowledge that comes from proximity to the land.
Wildcrafting also represents Mary Call’s one connection with her mother. Not only does her mother’s book provide the necessary information, but a ghostly figure who may or may not be Mary Call’s mother indirectly leads Mary Call to seeking out and studying the book. Wildcrafting bridges life and death.
Spring and Winter
The seasons are a ubiquitous presence and image in the novel, symbolizing Mary Call’s internal state as well as her connection to the land. The authors consistently use personification to describe the seasons, blurring the boundaries between humans and nature. Personification demonstrates the deep connection that Mary Call has with nature and the land; like a family member, the weather has human characteristics. The land and its phenomena are an integral part of her identity.
The seasons also have emotional resonances, mirroring Mary Call’s internal state. This is an example of pathetic fallacy. As Mary Call’s stress heightens—and more and more things go wrong—winter befalls and conditions worsen. The hardships become so ever-present that it seems like they will never leave: “Spring won’t come again. How can it? Romey was right; this is forgotten land. The Lord has forgotten us” (173). Here, hardships are synonymous with winter. Positive values—self-sufficiency, being remembered and recognized—are represented by Spring.
Spring does come, and the authors use homeoteleuton (repetition of the same word endings) to emphasize the wondrous effect of spring’s arrival: “silently unfolding, pushing, pulling, budding, splitting” (173-74). These active verbs speak to the family’s rebirth as a self-sufficient, natural entity. The family has survived the winter, and now they are blossoming fully into their rightful state.
Crying
A rare and forbidden aura surrounds the motif of crying in the text. With the act of crying, the Cleavers symbolize a complex array of emotions in their characters. Crying is present in moments of great tragedy and grief when the emotional body is so strong that it overpowers the intellect.
Mary Call’s negative interpretation of crying represents her accelerated adulthood. Outward displays of emotions by the Luther siblings are significant, because Mary Call believes that their survival hinges on not showing emotion or not letting emotion cloud or overwhelm the mind. When Mary Call informs Romey about their father’s death, she admonishes him, seeing his face changing with shock and grief: “So if you feel like doing any [emotional outpouring] don’t let me see you at it, you hear me, Romey?” (64). Although Mary Call feels sympathy for Romey, she does not believe that her family has the luxury of displaying emotion. For the family’s own preservation, they have to remain level-headed and stoic. Emotion becomes something threatening rather than a natural human instinct.
In a climactic scene in Chapter 13, Mary Call cries in front of Kiser, insisting that she is not “bawling.” This scene highlights Mary Call’s need for other people; she is not able to keep the family together on her own, nor does she have to. Her family is there to catch her when she falls.
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