101 pages • 3 hours read
Neal ShustermanScythe
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A 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
The Gleaning Journals
The gleaning journals are a motif that develops the theme of Human Fallibility and Weakness. Each scythe is required to keep a gleaning journal that is part of the public record. The majority of the scythes whose journal entries appear in the book use their pages to question themselves, their motives, and the nature of mortality, as well as to reassure themselves that their duty is necessary, if grim. The journals typically contain philosophical musings on what it means to be human and gratitude for the end of the Age of Mortality. The journals are thus a tool to help scythes coexist with those they glean and to keep them accountable to one another.
Goddard’s journal is an exception. His writing is an unabashed monologue of self-aggrandizement, of his longing for an end to gleaning quotas, and of the superiority of the scythes to normal people. Underscoring his cruelty is the fact that Goddard knows that his journal is public record. Those he may one day glean know that he relishes the chance to end their lives as brutally as possible.
The Scythe
The sickled-shaped blade of the scythe—combined with an open eye—is the emblem of their status and role. The scythe itself is a representation of death and is often carried by depictions of the Grim Reaper in popular culture. However, the blade was originally a tool for harvesting grain, which explains the book’s use of the word “gleaning” as a substitute for killing. This makes it a particularly appropriate emblem for the kind of death the scythes deal out, which is a way of keeping population growth in check. Like a farming scythe, the scythe wielded by characters like Faraday and Curie is (at least in theory) a tool to help humanity continue to flourish rather than a mere symbol of death.
Scythes’ Rings
The rings that scythes wear have a practical function; kissing one grants the person who does so immunity from gleaning for a year. The rings thus symbolize the power the scythes wield over life and death. They glow red—the color of blood—when a scythe has granted immunity, further emphasizing the nature of the scythes’ authority. The gesture is significant as well, as it recalls the practice of kissing the ring of a religious or temporal authority like a pope or king to pledge allegiance. In a world without government or (natural) death, these authorities no longer exist, but the scythes command a similar position of respect and fear.
Within the context of the developing narrative, the scythe’s ring also symbolizes the conflict between Citra and Rowan. They know from the beginning of their apprenticeship with Faraday that only one of them will become a scythe, but the competition that Goddard orchestrates significantly heightens the stakes by specifying that the loser will be gleaned. As the final conclave approaches, the question of who will ultimately wear the ring looms larger and larger in Citra and Rowan’s thoughts.
Robes
Because of the strict rules governing their behavior, the scythes have few chances to express themselves outside of their gleanings. Their robes are one of the few exceptions. Each scythe can choose the color of their robe and the way it is decorated. Some, like Faraday, choose simple, unadorned robes in basic colors. Others, like Goddard and his scythes, favor bejeweled robes with flamboyant colors that do as much work as possible to make the separation between them and non-scythes obvious. In this way, the robes symbolize the characters of individual scythes.
Related Titles
By Neal Shusterman
