52 pages • 1 hour read
Marie-Helene BertinoBeautyland
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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
Mother’s Garden
The garden that Térèse plants in the yard of the apartment complex where she and Adina live is a symbol of growth, change, and community. In the beginning, the garden is Térèse's attempt to build something that involves life, nurturance, and sustenance; she feels this need after a romantic disappointment, when she learns that Mark, the man she was dating, is married. The garden becomes a place where Térèse hopes to expend her energies that can be rewarding and ultimately nourishing, not just for her but for other dwellers of the complex.
In contrast to Adina, who keeps her eyes on space, looking for information about where she is from, Térèse’s interest in the garden reflects her more practical and earthbound nature. The effort to build the garden, as well as the financial investment, is a risk; it might turn out to be yet another disappointment. However, over the course of the novel, as Adina matures, moves away, and returns for visits, the garden expands and flourishes much the same way that Térèse does. Térèse returns to her education, eventually getting a master’s degree and a promotion that makes her financially stable for the first time. The ever-growing, prosperous garden reflects the fruits of Térèse’s efforts in other ways. She shows her traits of caretaking and attention to others in the way that she shares produce with her neighbors, and the help of others becomes a way that Térèse’s garden connects her small living community. Térèse’s garden represents her abilities to grow, adapt, and connect with others—skills with which Adina struggles.
The Fax Machine
The fax machine is a symbol of Adina’s connection to her home planet and the people she believes sent her to Earth; it provides communication, facilitates Adina’s reflection on and learning about the world around her, and becomes the link to Adina’s sense of purpose. More broadly, therefore, it represents Communication and the Limits of Language. Initially, the fax machine is garbage that a neighbor discarded, but Térèse fishes it from the trash and puts it in Adina’s room as a sort of toy. The very first efforts to communicate are ineffective because Adina has not yet activated. When that happens, however, the fax becomes a lifeline to what Adina thinks of as her superiors—one of the most important and lasting relationships that Adina has.
Responses from the fax machine to her messages offer perspective, counsel, instruction, and occasional irritation. Her faxes store Adina’s observations about the world and her attempts to find meaning. The fax machine becomes, in lieu of journaling, talking to friends, or other forms of therapy, Adina’s ways of making sense of the world.
When her superiors decline to identify the others who might be like her, Adina’s sense of isolation increases. This becomes more acute when communications stop altogether, and Adina fears that something has happened to her home planet. Shutting off her fax machine is the way in which Adina can rebel against her people’s plans for her and attempt to achieve independence, at least for a time. When she gets the mundane fax from the tanning salon in Minnesota, Adina is at first convinced that this might have some other meaning, showing her wish to connect, or reconnect, to those she feels are like her. The reams of empty paper spewing out of the fax machines at RadioShack seem, to Adina, to be a message that she is completely alone, and this heightens her sense of isolation and grief. Her final fax is the one-word summary Adina leaves behind; the fax machine has been the tool of her mission from beginning to end, signifying her role as an observer. In addition, the antiqueness of the fax machine, a tool that grows outdated in Adina’s lifetime, helps articulate her sense of not fitting in with the rest of the world.
Flying Man
The tubular inflatable that Auto World uses as an advertising gimmick becomes a landmark and anchor of Adina’s childhood and represents her belief that inanimate or non-human entities are sentient and trying to communicate with her. Different from the fish in the aquarium, who have their own system of communication, Adina imagines that the cheerful Flying Man is observing events in their neighborhood, much the way she is observing the world around her. She also projects goodwill onto his movements, imagining that he is enthusiastically supporting her choices both as a child and an adult. Given the absence of her father or many friends, this support adds an element of safety and reassurance to Adina’s life.
After she moves to New York City and visits home, witnessing how places like Beautyland have changed also, Adina no longer credits benevolence or indeed any thoughts to Flying Man. He is a relic of the innocence of her childhood and the way she felt she belonged to a small and well-defined segment of Philadelphia. Uninflated Flying Man presents a dreary image to Adina, signifying a lack of hope, and leaving Flying Man foreshadows Adina’s supervisors ceasing to communicate with her, when she no longer feels that she is being benevolently observed.
