Small as an Elephant

“Slowly, slowly, she’d reached out her trunk again and touched his cheek. Jack remembered giggling, remembered feeling as if the elephant tent were the safest place in the world.”

Jack’s earliest memory is of meeting an elephant and feeling utterly safe and connected to her. For many years, Jack has believed that his mother is the one who took him to the circus to see the elephant, but in the end he learns that his grandmother actually took him. All along, Jack’s safest place was in his grandmother’s arms, looking at an elephant, and in the end, that’s exactly where he is again.

1.  “Jack was glad he had two cups to fill; it gave him more time to think.”

Jack spends much time thinking, planning, and wondering what to do next. He often makes decisions on a whim or based on a present need rather than considering the bigger picture, but at other times he gives himself the space to think about what he should do next. In addition, Jack hops between optimism and pessimism. In this moment, he takes advantage of an inconvenience to avoid being conspicuous.

“Jack smiled. He and his mother could point out elephants for hours. Sometimes they even found them alphabetically: Airy Elephant, Balloon Elephant, Curly Elephant…He missed his mom so much at that moment, that moment of cloud watching, that he could almost feel is thoughts traveling to her, and finding her, and making her pick up her phone.”

When Jack was younger, he and his mother bonded over his love for elephants. Many of his happy memories with his mother were of times that she surprised him with a new toy or keychain elephant. Additionally, Jack and his mother often engaged in word play together, indicating their mutual intelligence and a shared trait. Jack feels so disconnected from these times that he fears he may never get them back.

“Her voice had grown more—what? Jangly. Urgent. It was his mother’s voice, but it wasn’t his mother—at least, not the mother he loved best.”

Jack thinks back to a memory, and his thoughts roam around it, trying to make sense of it, to describe it to himself again. He recalls one of his mother’s episodes in which she walked around the subway station asking everyone the same strange question. In that moment, Jack felt both embarrassed and scared for his mother.

“Yelled at the thief, yelled at the…at the raccoons who had confiscated his cheese, leaving his backpack on the ground, and were now scrambling away in the bright moonlight.”

The narrative often becomes fully immersed in Jack’s thought patterns, directly conveying his thoughts as they haphazardly unfold. When he wakes to a rustling sound and discovers that some of his food was stolen, Jack’s mind whirls as climbs out of sleep and realizes who the culprit is. The scene is simultaneously comical and tragic.

“Jack closed his eyes and pictured a herd of elephants on the savanna. Walking in a long line or playing at a water hole. Why hadn’t he been born an elephant?”

Jack relates to elephants: He is comforted by them and feels a connection to them that he doesn’t feel with anything else. Most of his earliest memories involve elephants in some way, and now, as he exists on his own, not knowing what his future holds, he wishes for the simpler, more carefree life of an elephant.

“Two whole days ago! Different emotions rushed to be first in line. Jack took a sip of water, pushing them all back, making them wait.”

The novel personifies Jack’s emotions when he hears that his mother was at the bar two days ago and has likely left the island without him. Until now, Jack told himself that his mother must be nearby, but hearing that she has truly left is a shock and changes his perception of both his situation and his mother.

“Jack held the baby elephant in both hands. Its wrinkled trunk lay against his splintered finger.”

The moment when Jack picks up and takes the plastic toy elephant is significant because it becomes an important companion and source of comfort for Jack. Keeping it with him reminds him of elephants and of simpler, happier times with his mother, memories that both sustain Jack.

“Maybe it was better that his mom hadn’t written. Leaving a note would mean that she wasn’t spinning, but was rational and making decisions. Decisions like, I’ll write Jack a note. Decisions like, I’m going to leave Jack in Maine.”

Jack struggles in thinking about his mother’s motivations for leaving him and in separating her illness from her true intentions. While he knows his mother loves him and would never leave him while in a rational state, another part of him doubts this and wonders if it has changed. As Jack has grown older, his relationship with his mother has evolved, and he no longer knows how to feel. The Effects of Unstable Attachment on Children as a theme is clear in Jack’s confusion.

“He was beginning to see the spiderweb that his mother was talking about: Mrs. Olson used her garden to connect to the food pantry, and now he was one of the strands that helped make that web stronger.”

Although Becky’s manic episodes tend to cause problems in Jack’s life, at other times he simply admires her for being so inspired and vibrant, so connected to life. Jack feels this same sense of connection when he starts helping others and receiving help in return, discovering how such help can be the key to survival and underscoring Sources of Unlikely Support in Trying Times as a theme.

“Jack’s heart was beating so loudly, he was thankful the couple was hard of hearing.”

This passage uses hyperbole to describe Jack’s nerves and his intense fear of being caught or seen by anyone. After stowing away in the couple’s truck and then eating out of their garbage, Jack knows that he wouldn’t be a welcome discovery. This state of panic and dread is a regular experience for Jack while he’s on his own.

“It wasn’t until Jack had woven his way through the mob (keeping his head down and apologizing over and over for his bulky backpack) that he saw a smattering of camp furniture in the corner.”

The description of this scene contains three distinct examples of alliteration in a single sentence (“woven his way,” “bulky backpack,” and “saw a smattering”). Sentences like these stand out from the usual prose for their poetic style and more playful tone, which also helps express the lighter mood when Jack experiences a moment of good fortune.

“Maybe he was turning out to be a bad kid after all.”

Jack’s thoughts sometimes turn to shame and guilt, particularly when he does things that he knows are wrong but has to do in order to survive. His mother always tells him how strong and intelligent he is, so when he feels as though he isn’t living up to that standard, he feels as though he’s failing.

“He wanted someone else to be in charge.”

Jack is usually strong and puts the thought of having a mother who can’t take care of him out of his mind, but sometimes he breaks down and becomes exhausted. This is understandable given that Jack is 11 years old and deserves protection and comfort when he needs it. In addition, Jack deserves to have someone else supporting him in his life, rather than always having to take care of everything himself.

“The moment the sun went down, the heat shut off.”

This passage metaphorically compares the sun to a furnace in a subtle way, as Jack experiences the sudden transformation from hot to cold at the end of summer in Maine. The novel constantly illuminates Jack’s world in this way, conveying the experience of every moment through his perspective.

“It would be their new day, their morning broken. He’d see Lydia. He’d do it for both of them.”

Jack and his mother argued about whether to go see Lydia, which is what Jack believes led her to abandon him. Still, he feels that by going to see Lydia, he won’t disappoint his mother but will instead show her that he hasn’t changed. He’s still her son, and he’s still the same kid who loves elephants.

“Jack felt like a kid in a game of tag, about to be marked it.”

This simile compares Jack’s emotional state to a frantic game of tag. He feels like he has to avoid and outrun everyone. In addition, this quote foreshadows an upcoming moment in which Jack is finally caught and brought to safety. In this moment, however, he sees being caught as a threat.

“Maybe all he needed was to look into Lydia’s eyes, and he’d know what was supposed to come next, how this would all work out.”

Jack’s love for elephants is a comfort and a consistent force in his world of unpredictable chaos and instability. He draws much of his courage and strength from this passion because it also provides him the motivation to keep going, which informs A Child’s Ability to Endure Tremendous Hardship as a theme. All he has to do is keep the thought of meeting Lydia in mind. Additionally, this quote foreshadows Jack reuniting with his grandma: Although he doesn’t know it yet, he’s correct in thinking that seeing Lydia will bring clarity.

“He could see sailboats in the distance, and lobster boats. Maybe, he thought, I could hide away on one of those. Travel by boat to York instead of walking. But so far, his one attempt at stowing away had not been successful.”

The imagery created through the descriptions of Maine and Jack’s experiences of the many seaside towns he visits is vivid and realistic. It brings a dreamy, atmospheric quality to his journey. Jack’s thoughts often mirror this dreamlike quality, and at times he considers unrealistic possibilities as solutions to his problems, like any child might.

“Man, he hated thinking about those things! And he hated sitting here, waiting to be caught.”

Jack’s thoughts create the narrative in the story and at times are quite casual. This makes Jack’s character relatable, particularly to young readers who may think about the world in similar ways. Jack has strong emotions, and the novel emphasizes this here by using an exclamation point and repeating the word “hated.”

“But most of all, ashamed because . . .

Because she’d left him.

There.

In between sobs, he thought it.

My mother . . .

My mother left me.

She

left

me.”

Structured differently from the rest of the novel, this passage displays connected thoughts as though they’re bricks being laid down in Jack’s mind as he realizes this harsh truth. The result is a break from prose into poetry. The novel emphasizes The Effects of Unstable Attachment on Children as a theme in that what Jack feels for his mother is most evident here, when he reaches a point of full honesty with himself.

“Elephants love reunions. They recognize one another after years and years of separation and greet each other with wild, boisterous joy.”

Each chapter begins with a short description of something amazing that elephants can do, and each of these descriptions relates to humans and the way that they are with one another. Jack’s reunion with his grandmother resembles an elephant reunion because it’s a purely joyous occasion after years apart.

“He wasn’t just Jack, the boy who had traveled all this way to be with an elephant. He was, and would always be, his mother’s son.”

Jack is shaped by his mother and his relationship with her. He experiences every possible emotion while thinking of his mother, both positive and negative, but knows that all these experiences have made him the person he is today. Becky’s desire to jump impulsively into life and her foolhardy bravery are in many ways reflected in Jack, who crosses a state by himself in the hopes of meeting an elephant.