28 pages • 56 minutes read
Zora Neale HurstonDrenched in Light
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1924A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The White Shell Road
The white shell road that Isis lives on with her grandmother, brother, and father symbolizes exploration. Isis spends the first half of the story craving experiences outside of the fence that surrounds her family home. She sits on the fence post to watch cars that drive by, fascinated by the world that exists outside of her reach. She calls the road “her great attraction” to illustrate how it captures her attention compared to the rest of her surroundings (45). This road allows her to experience life as a dancer and then provides her an opportunity to go to a new town with Helen. Not only does the road symbolize Isis’s desire to explore, but it being white illustrates new possibilities she has yet to experience—a clean slate. Isis’s characterization exudes innocence, and her wish to explore the world encapsulates her hope and faith that the world is wonderful. She believes this road will take her to the stories in her daydreams. Hurston implies through this description that the road will allow Isis to develop her own identity away from her grandmother’s watchful eye, relating to the theme of Developing One’s Identity in the story.
The Horizon
The horizon works together with the “white shell road” symbol by representing an opportunity for Isis to leave her current life at home. The horizon appears in the story when Isis is daydreaming of riding a horse off to a new world, relating to the theme of Developing One’s Identity. Isis envisions crossing the horizon, even though “she still believed that to be the land’s end” (48). This image illustrates Isis’s lack of experience and how little she understands the rest of the world, emphasizing her youth. However, despite believing that the “abyss” exists beyond the horizon, her curiosity still propels her to long for a world outside of the one she lives in. Right now, she exists solely within her home’s immediate landscape, and the horizon represents an opportunity to discover the unknown and the chance to become the person she desires, like a princess or Hercules.
The Gate Post
At the beginning of the story, the gate post from which Isis can see both the white shell road and the horizon limits Isis to a singular existence. Sitting on the post, she looks “yearningly at the gleaming shell road that lead to Orlando” (45). Similar to Grandma Potts, the post forces her into her role as a young daughter who must complete her domestic chores. It acts as a boundary that separates her from the rest of the world. Due to Isis’s status as a young poor, Black girl, she has limited opportunities, reflected in the boundary set by the fence. However, Isis straddles the fence, symbolizing her coming of age and foreshadowing her leap into the future at the end of the story. In the first part of the story, Isis’s only understanding of the wider world comes from stories. In her mind, she can only escape her existence if she were to leave the gate post and make her way down the road. When she does cross the fence and join the carnival, her world becomes vibrant and she commands the world’s attention, reaffirming her belief that real life lies beyond the gate post.
Related Titles
By Zora Neale Hurston
