43 pages • 1 hour read
Mary LawsonCrow Lake
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2002A 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
Railroad Tracks
As a child, Kate is fascinated by the railroad tracks. She imagines what it must have been like to lay the tracks and how hard the railway crew must have labored to do so. She listens to the trains roaring by, feeling a deep connection to the sound. This fascination is a clue that, despite Kate’s childhood fear of being separated from her family, she will eventually be tempted to travel far from Crow Lake and forge her own future.
The railroad tracks also serve a more practical function. Although the Morrison siblings don’t take the train as children, they walk along the tracks to get to and from the ponds. The trains are the main method of transportation out of Crow Lake, as well as being the path that guides the Morrisons home. They hold great symbolic weight in Kate’s childhood, while her perspective changes as she grows up and it becomes easier to drive into and out of the community.
Great-Grandmother Morrison’s Portrait
The novel opens with an anecdote about Great-Grandmother Morrison and her deep love of learning. Kate’s great-grandmother becomes a symbolic figure in her life, with Kate often thinking that she can feel her presence trying to lead her descendants to make something of themselves. Kate particularly feels that Great-Grandmother Morrison is connected to Matt, despite the fact that she died before he was born: Matt is the only one of the siblings who looks at all like her, and he carries on her spirit by being the brightest and most academically minded member of the family.
By hanging Great-Grandmother Morrison’s picture in their home, Kate’s father reminds them to hold onto her values every day. When Matt plans to attend university and Kate is upset about the idea of losing him, he shows her the portrait to explain why it is so important for him to go. The photograph connects the siblings to their family, to education, and to the sense that they have a destiny to fulfill.
The Ponds
When they’re young, Matt frequently takes Kate through the woods to a series of ponds, replete with plant, insect, and animal life. Matt loves the ponds and teaches Kate to love them as well, sparking her interest in what will become her professional field. In adulthood, Kate reflects that Matt didn’t just teach her about the ponds: He gave her a sense that they were miraculous.
Because the ponds are such a huge part of Kate’s relationship with Matt, they are also important to how she feels toward him as an adult. When Kate is haunted by guilt, feeling that Matt would have made more of the opportunity that she had, she has a dream that they are back at the ponds together, and she is hyperaware that he can no longer explain anything to her there. Kate is so troubled by the notion that she’s now more of an expert than Matt that she struggles to talk about her work and avoids sending him letters. The ponds also eventually symbolize their reunification: The novel concludes with Matt and Kate taking Daniel to visit the ponds, signaling that the two parts of Kate’s life are finally being joined together.
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By Mary Lawson
