59 pages • 1 hour read
Ana HuangKing of Sloth
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
Dancing
Dancing serves as a motif for Maintaining a Balance Between Control and Laxity. To master dancing, it is necessary to let go of the need for control and accept that “not everything […] has to be perfect” (210). Just as Xavier’s carefree attitude is a positive influence on the rigid Sloane, his dance lessons also illustrate the importance of loosening up and embracing spontaneity. During one of their early dance lessons, Xavier tells Sloane, “Dancing is about movement. You can’t move properly if you’re imitating a petrified piece of wood” (65). His statement illustrates Sloane’s tenseness and perfectionism, and he attempts to teach Sloane that dancing does not require flawless movements. Instead, dancing requires embracing the flow and spontaneity of the body. Sloane soon learns that when she does not “hyperfocus on moving exactly the way [she] should” (71), her movements flow much more easily. Ironically, only by abandoning her need for control does she finally find a sense of ease and grace.
When Sloane receives the news that her sister is pregnant with Bentley’s baby, Sloane resorts to alcohol to ease her churning thoughts and ends up dancing on a club’s tabletop, utterly intoxicated. Although her drunkenness makes her dancing more natural and allows her to dance “in a way that ignite[s] every cell in [Xavier’s] body” (84), it is clear that this version of dancing comes from a place of pain rather than freedom. When Xavier puts a stop to it immediately, his action illustrates that letting go of too much control, as he has done his entire life, can be just as detrimental as maintaining too much control.
Rom-Com Reviews
Sloane’s hobby of hate-watching romantic comedies and writing scathing reviews symbolizes her disillusionment with love. This ritual allows her to sharply critique idealized romances, and the pastime reveals her underlying bitterness and skepticism about the possibility of forming a genuine, lasting romantic connection. As someone who has endured significant emotional losses, including a betrayal by her ex-fiancé and extended estrangement from her family, Sloane writes scathing reviews as a way to express her deep-seated distrust of idyllic love stories, which she perceives as unrealistic and unattainable. Early in the novel, Sloane’s passion for dismantling rom-coms highlights her own guarded nature. Xavier notices this, remarking, “Her reviews were vicious, but I found the passion with which she wrote them oddly charming. She was so reserved all the time that it was nice to see an area in her life where she fully let herself go” (81). Despite the control that she exerts over her emotions in all other areas of her life, Sloane betrays that she actually does care about romance, for her very sense of passion in her heated reviews suggests that she harbors hidden desires for a meaningful relationship of her own.
As her relationship with Xavier deepens, Sloane’s resistance to romance movies begins to waver. In a pivotal moment during a date with Xavier, she realizes that she has watched a rom-com without instinctively reviewing it. This shift signifies her gradual acceptance of vulnerability and her renewed hope for love. By the Epilogue, Sloane fully embraces the ideals that she once mocked. Reflecting on the clichés of her own love story, she ironically asks, “Who said happily ever afters were unrealistic?” (437).
The Fish
In King of Sloth, Sloane’s pet fish, simply named “The Fish,” becomes a symbol of her fear of emotional attachment. Her refusal to give the fish a true name and her insistence that he is a “temporary” pet (despite his five-year lifespan) underscore her reluctance to form connections with others. The impersonal name of her fish reflects her guarded approach to all relationships in her life.
From the outset, Sloane’s attempted detachment from The Fish is evident. However, there are subtle signs that she cares more than she lets on—such as the detailed list of care instructions that she leaves for those who look after her fish while she is out of town. Sloane’s meticulous argument defending the perspective that The Fish is still a “temporary” pet after five years also highlights her discomfort with acknowledging permanence and commitment. At Xavier’s teasing, Sloane “construct[s] a whole argument about how temporary d[oes]n’t have a defined time limit” (176). She further argues that adopting The Fish “with the intention of rehoming him one day” only proves that the care is temporary (176), no matter how much time passes. This justification is Sloane’s way of protecting herself from the inevitable hurt and loss that comes with becoming attached to things. Despite her insistence that she is not attached to The Fish, his death deeply grieves her. Her reaction reveals the depth of attachment that she has unconsciously developed for the animal despite her efforts to remain emotionally distant.
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