49 pages • 1 hour read
Rick BraggAva's Man
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001A 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
Rivers
Charlie considered himself a river man: He was born in the woods, and he found the river a source of comfort, a place of sustenance, and a spot to recharge. Throughout much of Charlie’s life, he takes homemade boats out onto the river and sets up trotlines. While these trotlines catch fish that feed his family, the experience of fishing provides Charlie with solitude and peace. It’s while out on the river that he meets his best friend, Hootie, and he looks forward to their time on the water because he tells stories to Hootie, shares meals with him, and contemplates life.
For much of Charlie’s life, the river runs naturally. However, as the old South transitions to the new South, the river becomes dammed for the growing industrial needs. While the dammed river breeds monstrous catfishes that Charlie enjoys catching, the dammed river is symbolic of the changing landscape of the South: “To Charlie, a river was supposed to run narrow and wild” (200).
Charlie’s Hands
Charlie was a thin man his whole life, but he had huge, strong hands that were permanently caked with dirt. Charlie’s hands were symbolic of his identity:
The hands were magnificent. They hung at the ends of his skinny arms like baseball mitts, so big that a normal man’s hands disappeared in them. The calluses made an unbroken ridge across his palm, and they were rough, rough all over, as shark’s skin. The grease and dirt, permanent as tattoos, inked his skin, and the tar and dirt colored the quick under his fingernails, then and forever. He could have burned his overalls, changed his name and bought himself a suit and tie, but those hands would have told on him (52).
Charlie made a living with his hands. His work was physically demanding, making his hands appear rough and worn. As Margaret points out while looking at Charlie’s hands during his funeral:
His hands were rough and scarred and callused, his nails thick and cracked, his knuckles and the joints in his fingers red and swollen, from the work. A lifetime of grease and tar and river much had worked into the skin itself, and under the nails. A working man’s hands never really get clean, no matter how hard you scrub (234).
While Charlie’s hands revealed how hard he worked in life, they were also a source of comfort and strength for the people who loved him. For his wife, Charlie used his hands to defend her and his children from outside sources of harm. This can be seen when Charlie hits Jerry with his own gun when Jerry is threatening violence towards his family. Yet, no matter how rough his hands may have been, they were soft enough to cradle his babies and hold his children’s hands.
Whiskey
Whiskey is symbolic of many things throughout the book. For people living in the Southern woods during the Great Depression, the ability to make homemade whiskey was symbolic of survival. At a time when the effects of Prohibition lingered, making most of the region dry, whiskey was a highly, albeit secretively, sought-after commodity. Sometimes, whiskey could be worth more than money, and it was often used as a trading item for services. This can best be seen when Ava gives birth to Margaret, and Charlie uses whiskey to pay for the doctor’s services.
For Charlie, whiskey also symbolizes joy, fun, and freedom. He was taught how to distill whiskey from his father, and ever since he was a little boy he had been making and drinking whiskey. Whiskey making and drinking was a lifestyle for Charlie. The process of making whiskey forced Charlie to be alone in the deep woods. While being alone, he drank the whiskey, which he did because he found that it enhanced his already content state. In this way, whiskey was so ingrained into Charlie that it became part of his very identity.
Related Titles
By Rick Bragg
