78 pages • 2 hours read
Sid FleischmanThe Whipping Boy
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1986A 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
Petunia the Bear
Betsey’s bear, Petunia, symbolizes how appearances can be deceiving, and how most people long for caring and kindness. On the surface, Petunia appears fierce and frightening, because she is a powerful animal with sharp teeth and claws. Jemmy is initially afraid of her, as are Billy and Cutwater. However, underneath her fierce appearance, Petunia is a tame bear who is sweet and obedient. She enjoys a close and trusting relationship with her trainer and companion, Betsey.
Even Petunia’s name is comically unexpected, because most people wouldn’t expect a large and fierce bear to be named after a delicate flower. The relationship between Petunia and Betsey is likely founded on care and trust, as Betsey is a small girl who cannot overpower the bear with physical force. The discrepancy between Petunia’s fearsome exterior and her inner sweetness symbolizes how other characters may also be different from how they appear; for example, Prince Horace initially seems selfish and cruel, but he turns out to be mostly lonely and sad. Furthermore, Petunia is tame and gentle because Betsey took the time to care for her; likewise, the prince becomes kinder once he builds caring and trusting relationships with other people.
The Birdcage
When Jemmy prepares to leave Prince Horace, he comes across “a bent and battered birdcage” (51). He is pleased with this discovery, and keeps the birdcage, intending to use it when he returns to rat-catching. Later, the prince utilizes the birdcage to help him and Jemmy evade Billy and Cutwater; he uses it to create a distracting sound, leading the criminals astray. The birdcage symbolizes how various characters are trapped by their social positions, past experiences, and fixed beliefs. The cage is intended to hold birds and prevent them from flying free; Jemmy also intends to use it to keep rats captive after he traps them. This purpose reinforces other characters feeling trapped. Prince Horace is the most explicit about this feeling, as his feeling trapped in his life at the castle is what drives him to run away in the first place.
While Prince Horace feels stifled and trapped by life, Jemmy is also trapped by the limitations and lack of options stemming from his low status. Jemmy is just as stubborn in his belief that he can only thrive on the streets as the prince is in refusing to return home. Both boys are symbolically caged by their fixed beliefs, and only achieve freedom by opening their minds and imagining new futures for themselves. The birdcage being damaged and abandoned reinforces its symbolism, because many of the boys’ struggles stem from either physical or emotional suffering.
Literacy
Literacy is an important motif in the novel and reinforces the theme of Wealth Versus Poverty. Interestingly, the motif largely subverts traditional structures of social class and reveals that social mobility can be obtained via education. In the beginning of the novel, Prince Horace refuses to learn to read and write, but Jemmy enthusiastically absorbs this knowledge. Because the prince is so pampered, he cannot imagine needing more power than he already possesses, whereas Jemmy can appreciate that literacy will give him more agency and opportunity.
This unexpected inversion of social class (Jemmy is literate, but Prince Horace is not) ends up significantly impacting the story: Billy and Cutwater become convinced that Jemmy is the true prince between him and Horace because he is able to read and write. It is inconceivable to them that a crown prince would be unable to write; the criminals correctly recognize that someone as important as royalty should be able to read and write their own messages. Because the criminals also cannot read or write, the motif reveals that literacy—or a lack of literacy—can determine one’s opportunities in life. It can even be argued that the criminals reflect the kind of life Jemmy might have fallen into if he hadn’t sought education; while Jemmy is kinder than the criminals, if he’d been denied other options, he might have been forced to resort to a life of petty crime.
