95 pages • 3 hours read
Joan BauerRules of the Road
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. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Alcohol
Alcohol, particularly bourbon, Jenna’s father’s favorite drink, is a recurring symbol for painful memories. Jenna describes a recurring nightmare to Mrs. Gladstone where she “was taking a shower and instead of water coming out, it was bourbon […] I kept trying to turn off the flow, but the bourbon was washing over me and getting in my hair and eyes and mouth. I kept trying to spit it out, but I couldn't” (66). She felt as though she was drowning in bourbon the way she is metaphorically drowning in the destructive cycles with her father. Bourbon is the drink associated in Jenna’s memory with the night her mother decided to divorce her father, and when Jenna finally confronts her father, she tells him that the “smell of gin, bourbon and scotch” (198) are what she remembers most about her childhood.
“Daddy’s Home”
The expression “Daddy’s home” is a recurring motif. It stands alone in the running commentary of Jenna’s thoughts and portrays the dread Jenna feels of the impending chaos, pain, and disappointment she has experienced multiple times throughout her life when her father shows up drunk. The unannounced visits and embarrassing situations, broken promises, missed birthdays and school events are all summed up in the powerful, resentful, angst-ridden expression.
Cars
Cars are important symbols of success, hope, and also pain. Jenna’s father loved cars, specifically sporty cars, and saw them as symbols of success. However, for Jenna, her father’s cars remind her of how little attention he pays to her. She recalls that “[h]e took better care of those cars than he did his family” (108). Jenna dreams of having her own red car, which speaks to Jenna’s constant desire to please her father even though he causes her pain. Eventually, when Jenna does get her red car, she comments, “My dad would approve” (193), but at that point she no longer feels the need to please him, having completed her personal journey of self-realization. She celebrates her new car with her grandmother rather than her father and shares this symbol of success with the one person who has always been there for her.
Mrs. Gladstone’s white Cadillac is old, spotless, well-kept and “entirely trustworthy”, like Mrs. Gladstone herself, and features prominently in the book. It is the reliable “Seeing Eye dog,” guiding them on their journey.
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By Joan Bauer
