67 pages • 2 hours read
Laura McBrideWe Are Called to Rise
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A 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
Guns
In the book’s opening scene, Avis finds a gun that was hidden within her reach, and the symbol serves to indicate how violence may be present in all of our lives—even if we don’t know it. Avis must make a decision, and ultimately, she is unable to use it to harm Jim, who has harmed her emotionally. From Chapter 1 onward, guns appear frequently. Many of the central and peripheral characters are soldiers or police officers, and the main conflict and climax of the story are centered around Nate shooting Bashkim’s mother with a gun. The fact that a gun is central to this pivotal moment in the novel reflects the level of power this object has to change the lives of those involved.
Guns in this novel represent destruction, a device that threatens families, as seen in Avis’s memories of Sharlene’s abusive boyfriend whose gun is used to nearly kill the family and in Luis’s killing of the Iraqi boy and the boy’s mother’s grief. The symbol of the gun is used to reinforce the toxic masculinity in this book, where a man who can’t control his emotions exerts his power through deadly force, with fatal consequences. When Avis grips the gun, she must consider the potential destruction: “What about all those stories? All those guns that weren’t supposed to be loaded? All those toddlers killed, eyes shot out, lives broken?” (16). These are questions meant for the readers, too, encouraging us to consider the role of violence in our world.
Therapy/Therapists
Every character has their form of therapy (literal or figurative) in this story, continually returning to it as a source of emotional comfort, psychological growth, and moral questioning. Avis has her girlfriends and housewives who she gossips with, and her friendships with them help her find clarity amid the chaos of her family. Bashkim escapes to school to find himself when his home proves to be too toxic and demanding for his development as a young boy. Roberta finds her safety in her work, ignoring her own life’s potential problems by relentlessly helping others in need. Those who don’t seek healthy forms of therapy—such as Sharlene and Nate—are driven to extreme modes of expression that injure or even kill others.
However, Luis’s therapy with Dr. Ghosh is what functions as a motif in this text representing how all of us may sometimes need professional help in order to heal. Trying to overcome his PTSD, Luis can only achieve equilibrium and sanity by attentively and actively implementing Dr. Ghosh’s methods. Like a child in school, Luis slowly adopts the tactics of his therapist, telling himself: “Dr. Ghosh says that secrets aren’t healthy, and it’s because of him that I won’t lie about anything that has happened” (293). Luis learns how to tame his toxic male habits in therapy, and this leads to his salvation and his ability to help others. This leads to a larger social commentary about how men and women, especially as adults, must treat themselves properly to combat severe psychological trauma.
Las Vegas
Though seemingly unfit for creating a happy family, Las Vegas provides an interesting setting for this text where people of all backgrounds and lifestyles seek to live their happy version of an American Dream. Far from what many may see as an ideal home, the characters show how Las Vegas is just as American as any other city in the US. The neighbors come together for community events and family activities; the schools are filled with bright-eyed students and loving mothers; the environment isn’t as corrupting as perhaps one might imagine. Avis notes the irony of finding “a little bit of perfect” in “Sin City”:
I raised my son in a town nicknamed Sin City, in a place most American families wouldn’t dream of bringing their children, in a state where prostitution is legal and gambling is sacrosanct. And the little world we created, Jim and I and all those other hopeful families, was a little bit of perfect, a little bit of just what children are supposed to have, of just what families are supposed to be (229).
Childhood memories of Vegas are also frequent in the text and often represent a place of safety, healthy relationships, and purity. Though in Avis’s case she deals with the trauma of her family in Las Vegas, she doesn’t attribute it to the city itself, but rather to her neglectful mother, and Avis’s relationship to her community remains strong throughout her life, demonstrating the diverse possibilities of the American Dream in Sin City.
