Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood

“All of us, so interwoven, so braided, growing up Ya-Ya in that backwater, third tier state, where our families were the haut monde, their sins charming and mostly unnamed.”

Throughout the novel, there is a profound contrast between the lavish lifestyle of the Ya-Yas and their families and the natural, ancient land around them. These wealthy families have an impressive social life and insist on keeping up appearances. The use of the French term “haut monde” (“high society” in English) is an example of how Louisianian culture is a blend of several settlers and Indigenous people and has attained its own unique flavor.

“I live in an ocean of smell, and the ocean is my mother.”

In this metaphor, Sidda recalls moments of her childhood through smell, which is a powerful motivator for memories. As a child, her world was filled with sensory images, and Sidda can still recall how her mother smelled. When Sidda goes to visit Vivi in the novel’s conclusion, she once again smells this familiar scent and feels completely at home. The Significance of Mother-Daughter Bonds is revealed through these ties to memory and sensory experiences.

“That is the Blessed Virgin that these good little daughters of Mary have reclaimed. She was a tacky colored Cuban with rouge like a harpy, but we took care of that, didn’t we, girls?”

This quote from Vivi’s mother displays irony, mocking her racism and judgmentalism through her own words. In the novel, many moments of raw truth are veiled by subtle humor, often drawing on the absurdity of everyday life and the hypocrisy of certain values of the South. Vivi’s mother is so proper and strict in her approach to her religion; yet she uses the word “harpy” to describe the Virgin Mary and exhibits clear racism.

“When I get old and die, as long as the heart of one Ya-Ya is still pumping blood, I’ll still be alive! Our blood is all mixed into one.”

At the Ya-Ya ritual, the girls pricked their fingers and shared their blood, solidifying themselves as not just friends but a family that shares a blood bond. It is a powerful experience that acts as both a nod to the voodoo culture of Louisiana and a testament to The Power of Female Friendships.

“I want to lay up like that, to float unstructured, without ambition or anxiety. I want to inhabit my life like a porch.”

Jealousy and envy run in Sidda’s family, and she is no exception to this emotion. She looks at photos of the Ya-Yas curled up together in the heat of the summer and wishes that she had such a strong, easy connection with other women or with life itself. She uses an unusual simile—she wants to live life “like a porch”—to describe her desire for more emotional freedom, relaxation, and calmness.

“Go back to your tacky little hick town and grow up without a shred of gentility or breeding. The three of you are a trio of embarrassments!”

The Ya-Yas’ bold and unashamed nature stands out in contrast against the repression and propriety of the South, especially regarding the behavior of women. Ironically, the Ya-Yas are the ones who are brave and just and speak out against racism. Teensy’s aunt, on the other hand, seems to approve of her son’s racist remark.

“What is my civil war about? Is it the fear of being held in the warmth of familiar love versus the fear of running through the fog, searching for love? Each holds its own terrors, extracts its own pounds of flesh.”

In this moment of reflection, Sidda asks herself why she is in such conflict about marrying Connor. She has just explored her mother’s relationship to drama and understands the themes of her mother’s favorite film, Gone with the Wind; now she must decide whether it is more terrifying to be alone or to risk Love As a Process of Pain and Joy. She uses the metaphor of the Civil War to describe this conflict, since that war was the subject of the movie she just watched and it featured the struggles between two irreconcilable sides.

“To look at Vivi, it would be difficult to spot the tectonic shift that took place in her that afternoon. But it would render her more vulnerable than a person wants to be. It would create infinitesimal fault lines, perhaps profound enough to be passed on, like brown eyes or a proclivity for mathematics. But Siddalee could not know any of this. She could only study the photo and wonder.”

Vivi’s relationship with Jack and the subsequent loss of both Jack and her imagined future with him is an example of how love can often cause great pain. Vivi fell so deeply in love with Jack that it created vulnerabilities in her that broke her apart after his death. Additionally, the process of love and loss that Vivi went through within such a short time as a young person changed her entire personality; these changes may have been passed on to Sidda, which would explain Sidda’s fear of losing Connor.

“Mama taught me a lot of other lessons about femininity too. Some of them carry marks that no cosmetic can erase.”

Sidda learned everything she knows about womanhood from her mother and the other Ya-Yas. However, not everything that Sidda learned was positive, and this metaphor draws a comparison between Vivi’s compassion for Lizzie and the other, darker aspects of womanhood. Particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, it was common for women to feel a sense of isolation and powerlessness as they were left to raise children with little support from their husbands.

“They cried because Jack’s enlistment had cracked open their tight universe to the suffering world. They cried because in their highly resonant Ya-Ya bones, they knew that they would never be the same.”

The Ya-Yas inhabited their own private world during the Great Depression. They relied on one another and their friendship was their universe; they did not concern themselves with worldly affairs. However, when Jack announced he was going to war, it was as though real life finally cast itself upon the Ya-Yas, and their childhood was left behind forever.

“It was this devil dance between Shep’s quiet melancholy and Vivi’s frenzied charm—all of it oiled with an endless stream of Jack Daniel’s—that sculpted Sidda’s impression of marriage.”

Sidda resents her parents for not showing her what it means to love someone in a healthy way. She learns that her mother’s heart remained with her first love, and that Shep accepted his place as secondary. In her memories of their marriage, their opposing personalities seem only compatible through alcohol. It is because of this experience of marriage that Sidda fears her own future as a wife and wonders whether she is capable of loving Connor the right way.

“Thinking back to that night, she felt the pinch of old sadness. The memory of Jack could still hit her square in the chest.”

Memories of her past affect Vivi’s life in the present, which shows The Relationship Between the Past and Present. Two of Vivi’s most powerful memories are the love she felt for Jack and the pain she felt upon learning of his death. Despite almost 50 years having passed, Vivi still wonders what her life may have been with him, and she feels angry at the deep injustice of his death.

“Oh, Vivi, we are so torn up, like part of our own body just got ripped away.”

Necie and the other Ya-Yas are devastated when Vivi is sent away to boarding school. She is taken without warning or a proper goodbye, and the school makes it extremely difficult for her friends to reach her. This line highlights the idea that the Ya-Yas are so close that they are like one person; Necie uses the singular pronouns “we” and "our” when she speaks of them, describing themselves as “our body.” This is why they feel Vivi’s loss so deeply.

“All life, all history, happens in the body. I am learning about the woman who carried me inside hers.”

This quote develops the idea that mother-daughter bonds are not only conceptual or social, but also physical. Sidda becomes aware of the fact that her mother, who carried her for nine months, passed on parts of herself that shaped the very person Sidda was born to be. In learning about her mother’s life, Sidda also learns about herself.

“They only pray for your soul around here, Vivi thought. Your body could burn up, for all they care.”

Vivi experiences structural abuse while she is staying at the Catholic boarding school. Vivi struggles with the poor living conditions, bad food, and the stress caused by the strict rules. She ends up getting extremely sick from malnutrition. Vivi notes the sad irony in the way that the religious extremists who run the school treat their charges with such cruelty.

“The candle flickered beside her daughter’s bed, and its tiny flame released Vivi.”

After Jack’s death, Vivi’s mother— in an unexpected act of compassion—helps her to shake off her denial through prayer. Vivi and Teensy spent weeks convincing each other that Jack was still alive somewhere. It was not until Vivi’s mother prays for Jack’s soul that it finally hits Vivi that he is gone. This example shows that religion had a mixed influence in Vivi’s life—while it caused trauma (as in the Catholic boarding school), it also helped her deal with her struggles.

“I hugged myself around my waist. I had to hold on to myself. I had to hold my own body so I would not dry up and blow away.”

When Vivi is a young mother with four children and an absent husband, she breaks down and feels incapable of carrying on. She uses this metaphor to express how she feels like she is dissolving into nothingness. She is so worn out that she feels like she cannot go on. Also, she feels like she is losing herself—her identity—since she must only care for the needs of others.

“Having recounted several mysterious dreams, having analyzed her latest feelings about marriage, her mother, and the frustration of finding no answers, she was hardly prepared to be hit head-on with the sights, sounds, and scents of Caro, Teensy, and Necie.”

After days of solitude and self-reflection at the cabin, the sudden appearance of the Ya-Yas is a shock to Sidda’s nervous system. Still, their overbearing warmth and comfort is exactly what Sidda needs to let out the final remnants of her anger so she may move toward forgiveness.

“Sidda burst out laughing. She had forgotten that of all the secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood, the most divine was humor.”

Every dark day in the lives of the Ya-Yas is accented with humor. There is an underlying awareness within them of the absurdity of life and the need to laugh at one’s misfortune in order to survive it. Being with the Ya-Yas again reminds Sidda of the importance of humor.

“Maybe people are more like the earth than we know. Maybe they have fault lines that sooner or later are going to split open under pressure.”

Caro uses a simile to compare Vivi’s mental health crisis to a fault line that eventually causes an earthquake. It was not the result of one single thing; it was a culmination of Vivi’s entire life up to that point. This does not excuse Vivi’s behavior, but it explains where her crisis came from and helps Sidda forgive her mother.

“I’d never seen a field disappear before. I didn’t know such a thing could happen. I thought a field was forever. At that age I thought everything was forever.”

Seeing a huge shopping mall for the first time was a shock to Sidda when she was a child. Growing up among the natural world, she is surprised by a city. Sidda recalls the childlike naivety she had in her youth with a hint of whimsy and nostalgia; it is a perspective of the world she knows she can never reclaim.

“My mother and I are like elephants, she thought. In the stillness of night, out of sight, out of acoustic range, separated by barren, dry savannas, my mother has been sending me messages. During my dry season, when I froze in the face of love, my mother did not abandon me.”

In this simile, Sidda relates the experience of going on the elephant ride with her mother to the idea of them being like elephants. Since elephants can communicate across great distances, Sidda feels like she and her mother share this trait with them. Sidda’s mother was there for her when she was afraid to ride the elephant, and she helped Sidda overcome her fear of marrying Connor.

“Ain’t no doubt, Sidda thought: I’m right smack in the heart of Louisiana. She wanted to lift the tableau up, set it down on a stage, and say; This is where I come from. But this wasn’t a scene she could direct. She was in the middle of one sweet, messy, unpredictable improvisation.”

The drama in Sidda’s life is not something she can control like she controls the drama on stage in her job as a theater director. Once she realizes this and lets go of the need to know and foresee everything, she can finally enjoy the surprises and challenges that life throws at her.