86 pages • 2 hours read
Elizabeth AcevedoClap When You Land
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | YA | Published in 2020A 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.
Essay Topics
Among Clap When You Land’s various allusions is the epic tradition of nostos, in which a young (usually male) hero of an epic poem sails over a vast body of water to attain glory, most often by completing a quest or fighting in a battle. In what ways does Acevedo embrace or subvert this concept in her own poetic epic?
Although only offered to readers in glimpses, Tía Solana seems occasionally to perform small miracles, such as when she resuscitates Carline’s stillborn baby in time with the return of the lights after the blackout. If Clap When You Land is set in a relatively realistic world that obeys our laws of physics, how does the possibility of magic make meaning in the text?
Camino’s interior monologue returns repeatedly to the image of the resort where Carline works, especially when Camino considers, “I am from a playground place [...] Our land, lush & green, is bought & sold to foreign powers so they can build luxury hotels for others to rest their heads” (159). In what ways is the resort a negative presence in Sosúa? Support your answer with citations from the text.
Late in the novel, Yahaira remarks, “Ni Acquí Ni Allá” while she and Camino contemplate their late father’s life spent traveling between New York and the Dominican Republic (360). Ni acquí ni allá translates into “neither here nor there” and is commonly used to describe a lack of belonging to any single culture or community. Other than Papi’s past, what themes reflect this sentiment?
Early in Clap When You Land, Yahaira considers the monotony of her studies in the face of her father’s death: “What does an essay on The Tempest matter” (116). Shakespeare’s The Tempest concerns itself with a shipwrecked former duke of Milan, Prospero, and his daughter Miranda. Prospero uses magic to conjure the play’s titular tempest and enact his revenge on his usurpers, bringing them to the island. Prospero also brings Miranda a suitor, Ferdinand, and arranges a wedding. How does the allusion to The Tempest help to make meaning of events in Clap When You Land? What parallels exist between the stories?
How do the novel’s themes, plot developments, and poetic images serve to empower women? What role do women play in the world of Clap When You Land? Does the story condemn its male characters or offer a nuanced examination of masculinity?
Throughout the novel, Yahaira’s poetry is written in couplets, which give her voice a direct and efficient sound, while Camino’s stanzas usually have three lines and contain more of a fluid, rolling effect. These subtle difference project different voices, lending to their distinct personas and chapter sections. How else does the novel’s switch between points of view add to the story in ways that following just one central protagonist could not have achieved?
Clap When You Land presents the narrative of a traditional prose story through verse. What sections, passages, or poetic constructions dismantle more common understandings of novel form? What message or themes present in Clap When You Land might Acevedo be sending by disrupting commonly held expectations for books?
At the end of Clap When You Land, Yahaira and Camino make the return flight along the same route Papi took when his plane crashed. By giving us this literary echo, in which an action seen earlier in the novel is repeated, Acevedo is inviting readers to think in comparisons, giving the story symmetry. What other literary echoes exist in Clap When You Land? How do these comparisons make meaning?
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