Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews February 15, 2023 February 8, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Two of Sal's memories of her mother involve blackberries: the memory of her mother's desire to compete with and be as good as her father, and the memory of her mother sneaking a mouthful of fresh blackberries and kissing a tree. The blackberries symbolize nature's spontaneous bounty and generosity, to which Sal's mother is so keenly attuned. As gifts for Sal and her father, the blackberries symbolize Sal's mother's desire to share her love of the earth and the earth's goodness with her family, even though Sal's mother feels this gift pales in comparison to her husband's spontaneity and his steadiness. Sal incorporates blackberries into her own narrative, writing in her journal about tasting blackberries when she kisses trees, joking with Ben about the blackberry taste of their first kiss, and accepting a chicken from Ben named Blackberry. Blackberries symbolize the unexpected and unsolicited small sweet things in life, which occur even in the face of tragedy and human strife.
Sal notices three singing trees throughout the novel, each of which plays a role in the progression of her narrative. The first is the tree on her farm in Kentucky, a tree that contained a beautiful songbird in its highest branches and seemed to sing on its own. The second is the tree outside the hospital in South Dakota, which triggers her memory of home. The third singing tree is located near her mother's grave in Lewiston, Idaho. The three trees both represent and express Sal's powerful emotional reactions to the natural world, but also respond to her changing emotions: the tree on the farm did not sing on the day she and her father found out that her mother had died. Like blackberries, the singing trees represent the spontaneous and unasked for generosity of the natural world, but the also represent Sal, whose middle name is "Tree." The trees respond to loss and grief—they do not always sing—but they retain their beauty and their ability to express and induce joy.
Both Sal's mother and Mrs. Winterbottom cut their hair before or during their journey. Sal's mother, to her husband's chagrin, cuts her long black hair in the kitchen the week before she leaves, and Mrs. Winterbottom cuts hers while she is gone, returning home with a stylish new haircut. Both women cut their hair as part of their attempt to transform themselves. They are casting off their former selves, and perhaps casting off a part of themselves that marks their gender, a part traditionally associated with feminine beauty. To Sal, her mother's hair symbolizes something more complicated. Carefully saved and hidden beneath her floorboards in Bybanks, Kentucky, her mother's hair represents the happiness her mother once knew and lost. Her hair, saved but deeply hidden, reminds Sal of the idealized mother she is beginning to realize never existed.
Please wait while we process your payment