43 pages • 1 hour read •
So B. It
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Dishonesty in Difficult Situations
Truth-telling and its relationship to self-definition is a strong theme in the novel, and several characters including Heidi are on the giving or receiving end of a lie or fib. Ironically, some characters like Mama and Elliot, with their challenged level of intelligence, are not capable of lying; those with the trait of intelligence, however, lie to deceive others or to cover the truth.
Heidi has a high regard for honesty but struggles with it in difficult situations. She tells significant lies twice in the novel—once to Bernie to conceal the purchase of the bus ticket and once in a collection of untruths to Alice Wilinsky. Both times, she expresses regret and remorse. Both times, the lies occur in situations that are difficult for Heidi. For example, in buying the bus ticket, Heidi faces the fact that she must go alone to Liberty. Heidi acknowledges after acquiring the bus ticket that she never lied to Bernie before; she also comes clean as soon as she is home from the purchase: “I didn’t like the way lying made me feel, so I was anxious to set it straight as soon as I got home” (86). Alice’s companionship is initially comforting, but Alice inadvertently causes Heidi distress with her chatter about family and birthdays, difficult topics which prompt Heidi to fib. After Alice goes uncomfortably quiet because of Heidi’s Shirley Temple fibs, Heidi feels the awkward atmosphere and again regrets her lies. Heidi realizes that lies create the same kind of fog in a relationship as not knowing one’s past does for one’s identity.
Thurman Hill lies initially to avoid the difficult truth about Sophia and Elliot. Heidi is quick to point out that Mr. Hill is lying about not knowing Mama: “People lie, but pictures don’t” (200). Frustrated by the slow discovery of Mama’s past, Heidi points out that while the grownups seem eager to exclude her from the difficult process, they are the ones who tell frequent lies. Mr. Hill (who never admits to being Heidi’s grandfather) lies to cover up a value judgment on Heidi’s life. He assumes that because Heidi’s parents are both disabled, Heidi must be disabled too. He sees Heidi as a thing that should not exist, not his granddaughter. Mr. Hill’s view is not unusual. In fact, eugenic sterilization of those deemed mentally incapacitated is still legal in most countries (Roy, Ashwin et al. “The human rights of women with intellectual disability,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine vol. 105, 2012: 384-9).
Georgia Sweet’s character supports this theme as she gives Heidi advice on watching for indicators of liars: “Also most people do something weird and obvious when they’re lying. Twitch or blink or cough or something. It’s called a tell” (132). Heidi trusts this information from Georgia because Georgia has an interest in psychology and plans to study it at college. Heidi also tells Georgia the truth about Mama and Bernie; Georgia, unlike Alice, has made it easy to tell the truth by asking questions about Heidi. This is the nature of relationships—a give and take in the knowledge of each other.
In an ironic juxtaposition regarding the truth from Mr. Hill after hearing his lies, Heidi acknowledges that honesty can be difficult as well: “All this truth, spilling out around me, crashing over me in giant waves, left me sitting in the middle of the flood with nothing to say” (219). The growth here from innocence to experience is overwhelming for Heidi, and she realizes that telling the truth does not always foster creating a relationship, like the one she deserves with her grandfather. Instead, sometimes the truth is simply the truth, without affording any clear or immediate benefit.
Knowledge and Understanding as a Path to Identity
From the novel’s opening chapter in which Heidi discusses the unknowns about dinosaur color, knowledge and understanding are key theme topics. Mama shows the difference between the two; she has little knowledge, but deep understanding of love. In order to grow, Heidi seeks the knowledge of her life history that was denied to her by her life circumstances in order to understand herself as a complete individual. Heidi feels that her identity is incomplete without knowing more about Mama, Mama’s life before Heidi, and other family members. She wants to know how and why Mama’s name is So B. It. She becomes curious as she grows up about the missing rent and utility bills, and she can no longer accept Bernie’s story about Mama and Heidi just showing up in the hallway one day when Heidi is an infant. Most of all, Heidi becomes fixated on the word soof and why Mama’s concise list of known words includes it. Though Bernie tries to dissuade Heidi from perseverating on her past and the word soof, Heidi only becomes increasingly curious and connects the missing knowledge more strongly to her identity; not understanding her background becomes synonymous with others’ inability to understand her, and her own inability to understand herself.
As Heidi insists that she must learn the truth about who she is, stronger personality traits develop. She shows resourcefulness and forethought in her ploy to buy the bus ticket. She is stubborn when Bernie argues with her over the bus ticket, but does not give in. She is sensitive to unfairness when Roy drives to Hilltop Home without her, and when Ruby’s excuse for him doing so is that the grownups must work things out. Heidi is so intent to learn the facts that she rashly intends to walk the ten miles to get to the Home on her own. When Heidi first begins to hear the whole story about her past, her ignorance demonstrates the importance of facts to comprehension: “I don’t understand […] Who’s Diane DeMuth and what does this have to do with Mama?” (213).
Heidi tells Roy that dinosaur skin color might be determined one day if someone cares enough to learn it. Eventually, though, Heidi avoids worrying about topics she may indeed never know. She comes to see that knowledge and understanding may contribute to one’s identity, but that identity is also a by-product of your present self—including both the known and the unknown. Heidi learns the hard lesson that facts are still facts, whether they are known and understood or not: “Knowing didn’t change what was” (227).
Self-Comfort and Satisfaction Versus Agitation and Loss of Control
Despite the variety of intellectual and developmental ability levels amongst the book’s characters, several experience similar strong emotions (usually negative). Behaviors like repetition are employed to pacify emotions, but when comfort or satisfaction are not attained, agitation and loss of control result. This is easiest to see with Mama and Elliot, but Heidi and Bernie, show this trait as well.
Mama uses repetition, for example, when she seeks comfort. Heidi grows angry when Mama cannot explain the photos; Mama, worried that Heidi is displeased, offers her tea repeatedly. Heidi takes the tea eventually and Mama shows no more distress. Sometimes, however, Mama cannot control her own frustration; Bernie refers to times when Mama finds control difficult as “cooking up a royal rimple” (10). For example, Mama finds tying her shoes extremely difficult, even with repeated attempts. No satisfaction comes, and without it, agitation and potential for loss of control increase. Mama self-harms when she cannot tie her own shoes and gives up the attempt.
Elliot, distressed after Sophia leaves, upsets easily over small frustrations. He says the word “Soof” repeatedly to self-soothe and feel close to the girl he loved. When Heidi arrives, resembling Sophia, Elliot says “Soof!” but when he goes into the next room, he has a tantrum and self-harms, hitting his head. When “Soof” does not work to comfort him, he loses control.
Heidi is unable to keep control a few times in the novel. Seeking satisfaction, she questions Mama and Bernie when answers about the past elude her. No answers frustrate Heidi; she loses control and retreats to her room in a temper. Heidi also loses control when her calm, repeated questioning is ineffective at Hilltop Home; at the sight of the officer, she feels she has no recourse but to run.
Bernie tries different behaviors to achieve self-comfort and self-satisfaction regarding Heidi’s intended solo trip; she repeatedly rebuts Heidi’s points and uses guilt to put down the topic. Bernie cannot reckon with Heidi’s plans, and when her repeated points go unheeded, she loses control and closes the door between them—something she has never done.
Unlock all 43 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 9,100+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Sarah Weeks
