71 pages • 2 hours read
Bethany WigginsStung
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013A 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 Rifle
Bowen’s rifle serves as a strong symbol of rash decisions and their consequences, whether it is in Bowen’s hands or Fiona’s. The rifle also indicates Bowen’s ambivalent trust in Fiona: He hurriedly hands the rifle to her at the sound of an approaching hive, but as soon as they are in the factory, he takes the rifle back and places her within the cuff restraints again. The rifle represents the impulsive rapidity with which Bowen falls for Fiona, as just a short day later he leaves the rifle behind altogether, opting for Fiona to keep it when he leaves for supplies. He also elicits a promise from Fiona in a desperate attempt to keep her safe: Fiona can only go along to Wyoming if she swears to keep the rifle loaded with at least one bullet at all times to use on herself if caught by raiders. Enamored with Bowen and eager to get to relative safety, Fiona hastily agrees. Bowen rashly thinks that this solution will rid him of the burden of responsibility if he cannot keep Fo safe, a burden too similar to the one he bears from the torture and death of his own mother. Fo and Bowen’s decisions and discussions about the rifle are fierce and dramatic but thoughtless, which foreshadows the moment of Fiona’s most rash action: She shoots Bowen without first looking to see who approaches. Through the rifle, Wiggins explores fear as a primary motivation for rash behavior.
Clothing and Hair as Indicators of Identity
A motif of details pertaining to clothing and hair supports Wiggins’s investigation of assumptions made about gender and ability. Early in the story, Fiona’s most obvious mark of femininity, her long hair, must be sacrificed for her own safety, according to Jacqui and Arrin. Conversely, hairstyle is a mark of power for each man in the militia: “their hair is slightly long on top but short on the sides of their heads. Above their left ears, each one has horizontal stripes shaved into his scalp” (39). To abandon his loyalty to the militia, and show they no longer have any control over him, Bowen shaves the stripes from his head: “I’m not part of the militia anymore. I’m on their most-wanted list, right up there with the raiders” (174). While the clothing and hair of the raiders is unmatched, wild, and random, they too wear a mark of their power and group membership: “[E]ach man has four thick scars on his left forearm” (155). Here, their violence is literally made part of their flesh, an outward marker of identity.
When he takes Fo under his leadership and guidance, Bowen gives her his jeans and t-shirt; later, frustrated with Bowen and in a symbolic display of resisting his power, Fiona hacks away at the jeans with a shard of glass until they more suitably accommodate the cuffs Bowen insists she wears. Fiona gains power and confidence when her clean hair and clothing become refreshed emblems of her identity in the hotel room: “parting my bangs to the side so my entire face shows […] I pull the clothes over my clean body and twirl in front of the mirror. I feel like a girl again—almost like the old me” (178). Then she realizes that her appearance also connects to her power when Bowen asks her to change into more unattractive outfit: “And when I look at you, especially when you’re dressed like this, I can’t think straight” (179). As much as Fiona’s gender identity puts her at risk, it also empowers her.
Music
The motif of music, especially classical music, indicates the surviving elements of humanity after the apocalyptic bee flu. Fo is closely associated with this motif. Her mind often turns to music and music-filled memories; as a young teen, she practiced endless hours and was praised as a prodigy. Fiona hears musical compositions in her head the way some people hum a tune. Fiona is not able to play piano in the present time of the novel; in fact, in the closing scenes, her continued ability to play is questionable thanks to a broken little finger. This threat to Fo’s talents signifies the larger threat to the survival of human culture.
On waking in her ruined bedroom, one of the first details Fo notices is fading of her first-place piano award ribbons and her classical music posters. This setting detail serves as an introduction for later mentions of Fo’s talent for piano in several flashbacks; for example, Fo was in the middle of practicing Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony when the vaccine news conference began. Notably, this is the same composition she “hears” in the sewer while attempting to ignore Arris’s sleep-mumbles: “I try to block her out by focusing on the rhythm of dripping water […] My fingers move to the beat, tapping out the notes to the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh […] and as I play the silent music, I cry myself to sleep” (21).
Later, guitar chords catch her attention at the militia camp; she and Bowen share a memory over the music he used to hear her practicing. Waiting for whatever fate awaits her in the pit, Fo tries to imagine the strains of an appropriate piece: “I plug my ears, lean against the wall, and start humming Maurice Ravel’s ‘Pavane for a Dead Princess’” (245). Only once does Fo have the chance to touch a piano in the real time of the novel; at the Marriott, she yearns to try the grand piano in the lobby, but Bowen points out the danger of alerting raiders, Fecs, or militia, so she does not touch the keys. The moment symbolizes loss and sacrifice in favor of survival.
