58 pages • 1 hour read
Maurice Carlos RuffinWe Cast a Shadow
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Shadows
Shadows, introduced in the novel’s title, remain an important symbol throughout. They represent the narrator’s internal turmoil, the intense fear and self-hatred he feels about his Blackness. He sees shadows everywhere, associating them with things frightening or painful. When he first meets Araminta, he instantly dislikes her, describing her complexion as “blue-black, the dark of a shadow in a cave” (33). Later, he wonders if she ever loses herself in the darkness and if she has to make sure not to “leave any part of herself behind in the shadows” (158). The reader can see that Araminta is the furthest thing from lost within herself; rather, she’s confident, outspoken, and shows stronger convictions and values than the narrator ever does. Because he feels lost and scared in his own skin, he projects those feelings onto Araminta with the shadow imagery.
In describing the perpetual racism his family endures, the narrator claims that “shadows followed us wherever we went” (46). On rare occasions, he is able to enjoy “shadowless afternoon[s]” with Penny and Nigel, moments when his inner, panicked din quiets and he can feel close to his two favorite people as if there is nothing at all in between them.
Not all the shadows the narrator sees are outside of himself. After Penny’s death, he describes his suppressed grief as a shadowy feeling. When Dinah gets surgery to appear whiter, the narrator experiences a complicated tangle of feelings that he describes as “shadows on the wall of [his] psyche” (211). After dropping into a sewer tunnel to hide from ADZE, the narrator walks away from the light, into the shadows, symbolizing his inability to break with his self-destructive mindset.
Given that a shadow naturally follows a person around, it is ironic that the narrator seeks to banish and outrun the shadows in his life. This irony is even referenced in the title, We Cast a Shadow. It is unclear to whom exactly the “we” is referring. Depending on how it’s read, it could reference the racist society that left the narrator broken and susceptible to inner, growing shadows—or, it could reference the narrator himself, who, through his obsessive mindset, creates the very situation that he is trying to avoid by losing Nigel for good. By the end of the novel, he has become “a shadowy simulacrum” (316), completely consumed by his inner demons and alienated from his family and any sense of identity.
Earrings
In We Cast a Shadow, earrings symbolize death and loss. There are two distinct incidents in which one of the narrator’s female loved ones loses an earring that ends up embedded in a part of his body. Both incidents immediately herald someone’s death.
The first occurs in the narrator’s childhood recollection of the Tiko. While observing a lighthearted argument between his parents, the narrator notices that Mama has once again lost one of her gold earrings, a frequent habit of hers. Mama and Sir’s argument is interrupted by staccato gunfire, the sound of the Anti-Violence Task Force routinely killing Tiko residents. The narrator rushes to the window in time to see Supercargo’s mother, Ms. Wendy Woods, confront the Anti-Violence Task Force over their actions. An officer’s helmet light fixes on her and turns red, ostensibly preparing to shoot her. Just then, the narrator steps on Mama’s missing earring, which pierces his foot. The moment of sharp physical pain stands in for the moment of Wendy’s murder. Pulling the earring from his foot, the narrator describes it as “a golden scythe” (145). Scythes are a farming tool used to cut grass or wheat but are better known for their association with the Grim Reaper, a personification of death who carries a scythe used to reap souls.
The second earring incident occurs after Penny finds the narrator’s diary and discovers that he is secretly planning Nigel’s demelanization. They have a heated argument before she storms out, swearing divorce. As the narrator chases after her, he trips down the front steps and feels something pierce his hand. It’s one of Penny’s earrings. Looking up at the sound of a scream, he sees Penny lying on the pavement, struck by a City Police van. Once again, a moment of small physical pain stands in for a larger trauma, and the “scythe” of an earring back foreshadows imminent death.
Throughout the novel, the narrator tries hard not to let anything, no matter how awful, stir up his emotions. While he usually manages to remain outwardly stony, the fact that the earrings break his skin and enter his body symbolizes that he cannot fully shield himself from trauma.
Hats
When Nigel is a child, one of the measures the narrator takes to stop his birthmark from spreading is to limit his sun exposure and force him to wear a hat at all times, even indoors and in the dark. Hats become a symbol of the narrator’s parental control. Early in the novel, the narrator gives Nigel a neon-yellow baseball cap to distract from his “distorted” face. He claims that Nigel loves baseball caps, but this clearly isn’t true, as Nigel intentionally misplaces every single hat the narrator buys him. His hatred of the hats, and of the controlling behavior they symbolize, is further evinced by the comic strip he draws that casts the narrator as “The Fascist Fedora” (132), a villain who forces ordinary citizens to don ridiculous headwear. Still, during childhood, Nigel obediently dons caps when the narrator asks him to. It’s only when he grows older that he refuses to wear them, a change symbolizing his disillusionment with the increasing parental tyranny. Eventually the narrator cannot even pay Nigel to wear a hat. This telltale sign that the narrator has completely lost control over his son shortly precedes the revelation of Nigel’s ADZE membership.
The symbol of a hat makes a reappearance in the final chapters. When the narrator searches for Nigel at the New Rosewood commune, he is approached by a Black man in a yellow baseball cap. Although he doesn’t recognize him, the man is Nigel, wearing the same yellow baseball cap that the narrator gave to him as a child. Nigel admits that he keeps the cap to remember a time when he thought his father was a good person.
