Night of the Twisters

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1984

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-7

Chapters 8-11

Chapter 12

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Dan’s Bicycle

Dan’s bicycle symbolizes his freedom at the start of the book. He opens the book with a story about a “red-letter day” (3)—or “terrific and wonderful” day (3)—when he won a “slick new racing bike” (4). He directly compares it to a “black-letter day” (6) like June 3, when the twisters came. The comparison shows that there are few things he loves and enjoys more than his bicycle. When he drives Officer Kelly’s police car, he remembers his dad saying they both “were born on wheels” (111). Until that point, however, it’s a reference to the joy he experiences riding his bike. His plans on the day of the tornadoes include “a bike hike out to Platte River” (6) with Arthur. Although the wind is too strong that day, Dan explains that normally he and Arthur “always sprint on our bikes” (14) at Fonner Park Racetrack.

Dan spends most of the day before the twisters come riding his bike with Arthur. His bike offers him mobility, as well as quality time with his best friend. He and Arthur bike to the park, around their neighborhood, and back and forth between one another’s houses. When he and Arthur run into Stacey Darlington on their way home from the park, she asks if she can ride “double” (12) on the back of Dan’s bike. Arthur vetoes the idea, but Dan fantasizes about Stacey “hanging on to my waste while I demonstrated my biceps and quadriceps and my great cycling skills” (13). In that moment, his bike is an extension of himself as it becomes a way for him to impress the girl he likes, at least in his mind.

Dan’s bike allows him to have some time away from his family as well, with whom he has a somewhat strained relationship at the start of the story. After Dan’s dad gets upset with Dan for complaining about helping his mother, Dan, and Arthur head out on their bikes. Once Dan is “on wheels again,” he immediately starts “feeling better” (30) about the situation. His bike is a way for him to regain his composure. When Dan’s Aunt Goldie comes to his house, he tells her that he and Arthur are going on a bike ride, so he doesn’t “get stuck having to sit there and talk to her” (28). Dan’s bike also gives him independence. Once the storm comes, he turns all his attention to helping his friends and family. To foreshadow the point that his bike will soon become of minimal importance, Dan leaves his bike outside as the storm is slowly approaching. His dad yells at him, asking if he knows “what base-ball-size hail can do to a bicycle?” (21). Arthur then moves Dan’s bike into the garage for him.

Belle Smiley’s Doors

Early in the book, Dan and Arthur’s elderly neighbor, Belle Smiley, replaces her old door with a new one that survives the storm intact. The old door has a screen inside of a “green wooden frame” that contains “fourteen patches on it” (33). One of the patches apparently dates “back as far as World War II” (34). The old door symbolizes Dan’s past and a way of life before the storm. Mrs. Smiley says she “hated to part with [the] old door” (34) because it gave her “years of service”(34) but she ultimately needed something stronger and more resilient.

The new door, which Belle Smiley shows off to Dan and Arthur, is an “aluminum storm door with a screen on the top half” (32). Mrs. Smiley demonstrates that it “didn’t squeak, didn’t slam, didn’t swell up and get stuck in the kind of drippy, drizzly weather we’d been having” (33). While the old door has character, it requires an upgrade to make it through the difficult times ahead. Dan’s personality undergoes a similar shift as he rises to the challenges presented by the night of the twisters. He overcomes his patchy relationship with his family, especially his baby brother, to become stronger and more dependable—like Belle Smiley’s new door.

However, the old door is not forgotten. Arthur retrieves it “unharmed” (149) from his basement in the aftermath of the storm and Mrs. Smiley decides to use it for her new back porch. While the new door is more prominent in the front of the house, the old door still has a place where it can be useful. The continued presence of the new door suggests that the old memories and way of life before the storm are still present, but they are no longer front and center. Dan’s personality has become stronger and he’s much closer with his family, but the changes are built on who he once was. Just as Mrs. Smiley makes room in her house for both her old door and her new one, there is a place in Dan’s life for both his old self, filled with memories and experiences, and a more mature version that has survived the night of the twisters.

Arthur’s Bull-roarer

In Aunt Goldie’s crafts class the morning before the storm, Arthur makes an Indigenous American bull-roarer. Dan tells Arthur that Aunt Goldie probably hated it because of Arthur’s demonstration, which involved swinging it around his head and breaking a lightbulb. Dan explains that when Aunt Goldie suggested making Indigenous American crafts, she probably means “something regular” like “basket weaving or pottery painting” (9). Despite Aunt Goldie’s sentiments, the bull-roarer serves as a symbol of the night of the twisters and foreshadows the tumultuous events that transpire.

Dan describes the bull-roarer swinging around Arthur’s head in crafts class as “whizzing and roaring like a whirlwind” (9). It was so loud that they “couldn’t hear anything else” (9). As the first tornado approaches, Arthur compares the sound of the wind to his bull-roarer. As Dan’s mom leaves the house to check on Belle Smiley, Arthur shouts that it “Sounds like my bull-roarer outside!” (45). Once the tornado arrives, Dan describes it as “the loudest noise I’d ever heard, whining worse than any jet” (54). The sound and motion of the roaring bull-roarer mirrors that of the tornado that hits Dan’s house. The connection between the two leads Arthur to decide the bull-roarer is the cause of the tornadoes.

In the women’s prison at police headquarters, Arthur tells Dan he thinks the bull-roarer is responsible for all the damage. He explains that the Hopi tribe doesn’t let their children play with bull-roarers indoors. The sound “is supposed to bring on that whirlwind—death and destruction and all that” (123). He says he still swung the bull-roarer in Aunt Goldie’s house despite his knowledge of how it functions. He adds that Aunt Goldie’s place is now “ripped apart worse than anybody’s” (123). Dan reassures him the bull-roarer is not the cause of the bad weather. He tells him the “tornado wasn’t anybody’s fault” (124). Arthur doesn’t argue and accepts that the bull-roarer is not responsible. However, the bull-roarer strongly foreshadows what’s to come and bears striking similarities to the tornadoes.