37 pages • 1 hour read
Jacqueline WoodsonIf You Come Softly
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1998A 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
Manhattan and Brooklyn
The locations of Manhattan and Brooklyn feature heavily in this book as symbols of contrast for the two main characters and their very different worlds. Fort Greene, Brooklyn is not only the backdrop to Jeremiah’s life, but it represents his community and a space of Blackness where he feels protected and good in his own skin. This is where Jeremiah went to school and feels comfortable, but once he begins his new year at Percy Academy, he must leave this comfort zone and interact with the world beyond Brooklyn. Ellie, who has ventured to Brooklyn only as a child, has preconceived notions of what the borough might be like. When she finally takes the train to Fort Greene with Jeremiah, she is surprised by its beauty and ultimately gains a whole new insight into Jeremiah’s life and world.
Manhattan, on the other hand, represents Ellie and the white, sheltered world she grew up in. Living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Ellie is surrounded by people who look and think like her and her family. Their whiteness, wealth, and privilege define this space and are especially present at Percy Academy. When Jeremiah leaves Brooklyn Tech to attend Percy, he is confronted with the challenges and dangers of being Black in this world. Ultimately, Jeremiah meets a tragic end in this world, killed just for being a Black man in Central Park. These two locations demonstrate the comfort zones of Jeremiah and Ellie, as well as the dangers that come when individuals venture beyond boundaries that keep communities apart.
Time
The idea of time is a motif that appears across the novel to build connections between characters, foreshadow events, and highlight the theme of fate. When Ellie and Jeremiah are apart, they often refer to the way time passes or are consumed by thoughts about how events and people might be coming toward them in time. These similarities in how these two characters think about and perceive time depict an underlying connection between them in the reader’s mind, even before they finally come together and long after they are separated by tragedy. Early on in the book, time is used to plant seeds of the major events to come. The idea that time is something that must be grabbed, or that time is slipping away, is something that Ellie and Jeremiah continually think about. These thoughts create a sense of suspense around the impact of time on the couple and the possibility of time running out on this love. When Jeremiah’s end ultimately comes to light, the reader has been expecting the passing of time to influence the plot and emotional arc of this story.
Finally, this use of time to foreshadow events also brings to focus the theme of fate that appears throughout the book. Because this foreshadowing creates suspense and expectation in the reader, the story’s end feels inevitable and meant to be. This inevitability suggests that there is a level of fate involved with not just Jeremiah’s tragic end, but also the coming together and love of Jeremiah and Ellie. This sense that they were always moving toward each other in time demonstrates that fate brings us to the people and things that we are meant to encounter and changes our lives in unexpected, and yet inevitable, ways. Time appears and is used throughout the book to hold characters together, craft a feeling of forward momentum, and emphasize the notion that we are sometimes moved and impacted by something inexplicable.
“If You Come Softly” by Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde’s poem serves as a significant motif throughout this book, featuring heavily in multiple chapters and providing the book’s title. Lorde’s poem addresses a reader and tries to speak to this reader across a divide or separation. Repeatedly, she explains that if they come softly to each other and listen, they will be able to communicate and sit together. Using imagery of nature, the poem suggests that this coming together can be as gentle and natural as the natural world around them. The poem also mentions death and seems to suggest that this coming together may also bridge the world between life and death. Generally, Lorde’s poem contains themes of the hope of connection and the power of listening and understanding.
The poem first appears within this book, when Jeremiah recites some of it to Ellie as they sit in Central Park talking about Ellie’s history with her mother, Marion. Jeremiah shares a portion of the poem that refers to coming to each other softly that so you can see what each other sees and not ask too much of each other. Though he says this reminds him of Marion and of how people come and go in life, this section of the poem also underscores the way Ellie and Jeremiah have come to each other, and it foreshadows the way they will go from each other’s lives. Later, the poem appears again in Chapter 25, which features just two verses of Lorde’s poem that refer to coming together to sit softly and silently, not asking for explanations, just connecting across years and sorrow. Appearing directly after Jeremiah’s funeral and before the novel’s final jump in time, Lorde’s poem here underlines the overall significance of Ellie and Jeremiah’s connection. It suggests how Ellie will continue to remember Jeremiah even after his death. This overarching idea of Ellie and Jeremiah’s connection across the divides of race and death provided by the motif of this poem is also present in the book’s title. By naming the book after Lorde’s poem, the author emphasizes that the poem’s major themes are central to the story of Ellie and Jeremiah.
Related Titles
By Jacqueline Woodson
