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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Lightning

Lightning is a regular feature of Tangerine County and Lake Windsor—in fact, the area is the “lightning capital” of Florida. For some residents, lightning is such a regular occurrence that it fades into the back of their perception, but for others, including new resident Mrs. Fisher, the lightning startles them into action. When lightning kills Mike Costello on the football field, Mrs. Fisher petitions the community to move football practices to the morning when lightning is less likely to strike. The division over the petition reveals the callous lack of concern some community members, such as Coach Warner and even Mr. Fisher, feel for others. Mr. Donnelly’s house is hit by lightning so often that he installs a series of unseemly lightning rods on his home, which ends up irritating his neighbors, most notably Mrs. Fisher, and revealing how much they are preoccupied with outward appearances. Lightning both fades into the background and serves to propel the novel forward by revealing some characters’ darker sides.

Ospreys

The ospreys continuously appear in the novel, symbolizing the predatory nature of the citizens of Lake Windsor, which is an “open secret,” similar to the osprey’s capture of the koi. Early in the novel, Paul spots a bird of prey circling over him and his father at football practice at Lake Windsor. Anyone might first think it’s a hawk, but Paul, having completed a science project on the bird, correctly identifies it as an osprey. Later, Mr. Fisher spots a group of ospreys on some telephone wires and feels irritated that no one is “doing anything about” them, since they could cause power outages. Paul thinks about how the osprey might be building nests in a ridiculous area, but so are people, building manicured homes over muck fires. Paul finds the situation ironic. Finally, when the community cannot figure out who is stealing the koi in their pond and come up with a theory that a local person is stealing them and selling the prize fish, Paul tells them that it’s the ospreys, as he can see them carrying orange fish in the sky. The ospreys “steal” the fish out in the open, but no one notices, similar to the way Lake Windsor—from its community development to its football team—is stealing land and football points to get ahead.

Spray Paint

When Lake Windsor Downs first suffers from vandalism, it is when the words “Seagulls Suck” are spray-painted on the perimeter wall that surrounds the community after the Seagulls beat the Tangerine County football team in the Thanksgiving Day game. When Paul goes out to the see the damage, he sees the wall and the white spray paint and is seized with a memory, a flashback, but he cannot grasp just what the memory is. Later, when Paul confronts Erik after the brawl at the Senior Awards Ceremony, he again sees the wall with the spray-painted words “Seagulls Suck,” and suddenly all his memories about Erik flood back. Spray paint becomes a recurring signal for sudden flashes of insight, which seize and propel Paul into his past and future.

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