Hush

Jacqueline Woodson

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2000

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Dedication and Part 1, Chapters 1-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-10

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Names

Content Warning: This section contains mentions of a suicide attempt.

Names are a recurring motif throughout Hush and point to the theme of The Challenge of Navigating a New Identity. In the very first chapter, Toswiah alerts the reader to the change in her name (Evie) and explains how she chose it—in memory of a jump-rope game she once played with her best friend Lulu. Toswiah struggles to make sense of who she is under her new name. The name “Toswiah” connects to her personal history, as she shares it with her grandmother and great-grandmother. She also treasures it for being unique, as she hadn’t met someone with the same name until the move. The Toswiah she does meet in her new school is the opposite of her, extroverted and surrounded by friends.

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Evie’s classmate Toswiah is representative of the conflict she feels over the erasure of her past and new identity. However, Evie and Toswiah warm up to each other over the course of the novel and share a moment of true connection when Evie is beginning to make peace with her new name and identity. Names are important to Cameron (Anna), as well. She originally wants to keep her own name, but when forced to change it, she picks a palindrome. Cameron, even as Anna, wants to stay the same person, and refuses to be forgotten.

Running

Running is a recurring motif in the novel. It points to the Green family’s experience of running away from their past and home, and toward safety in a new place. Evie reinforces this motif when she decides to join the track team, as she feels she has been running for a while. Running also points to the theme of The Role of Community in Coping with Trauma. As a method of coping, running becomes an outlet for Evie to vent her frustrations with her new life. However, it also offers an avenue for community, as she begins to befriend the other girls on the team.

Following Jonathan’s suicide attempt, Evie stops attending practice. She is literally running from running, and this response sheds light on her temperament: Evie has a flight response to stress. She does eventually return to track, and in doing so, finds a way to make peace with her present. Thus, running also points to the theme of Navigating Identity: The discovery of something she is good at contributes to Evie’s self-worth, and she is able to integrate her two selves into a single, coherent identity.

Coconut Cake

Coconut cake is a recurring symbol in the novel. It is a special treat baked for Toswiah on her birthday and appears in the opening snapshot of the novel, as part of a delicious dinner cooked by Shirley. The cake represents a fresh and happy start, as Toswiah associates it with her birthday. After the family’s move, she imagines Grandma bringing her a coconut cake with a single candle atop it for her first day of college. The cake and the candle symbolize Toswiah’s desire for a fresh start from her life as Evie, an opportunity to reunite with Lulu and Grandma. As Evie, Toswiah receives another coconut cake for her 14th birthday. However, the cake is different this year: It is store-bought, not homemade, and there are no accompanying candles or birthday celebrations.

The lack of candles and celebration signifies how this particular birthday is not a fresh or happy start: Evie and her family are in a rut, languishing in their current situation. Furthermore, the cake also illustrates how much Shirley has changed. There are no candles or celebration because Shirley’s new religion does not permit her to celebrate birthdays or holidays anymore. Toswiah notes that her mother, once a good cook, does not put much thought or care into cooking anymore—buying a cake instead of baking one. In order to survive her new life and fill the void left by the erasure of her past self, Shirley has let herself be consumed by religion.