37 pages • 1 hour read
Charlotte McConaghyMigrations
Fiction | Novel | Adult | 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.
Symbols & Motifs
Arctic Terns
Arctic terns are small seabirds which have one of the longest migration patterns in the animal kingdom, covering 25,000 miles in a year. In Migrations, the terns are a near-constant presence, populating Franny’s dreams and driving the Saghani’s voyage to Antarctica. The long-flying birds symbolize the relationship between Franny and Niall.
Franny and Niall are different by nature, but their fascination with the natural world and the terns allows them to connect. Franny understands the terns’ need to migrate on a visceral level; her own life is a singular migration driven by instinct. Ornithologist Niall understands the terns’ behavior from a scientific viewpoint. Like the terns, Franny fascinates and awes him, but in order to sustain their relationship he would have to put her in a symbolic cage. He declines to. Their marriage ultimately can’t survive her flights.
Niall believes that human intervention in the natural world, even if well-intentioned, can only cause harm. At MER, he butts heads with other conservationists who are trying to retrain the terns’ behavior and breed out their migratory instinct. He feels it’s unfair to make the animals adapt to the devastation that humans have wrought on Earth. Niall’s refusal to interfere with the terns symbolizes the way he loves Franny. Although he would be happier if she stayed with him, he won’t destroy and mold her into a more suitable spouse for himself.
After Niall’s death, Franny clings to the terns as she tries to suppress her grief. She places all of her remaining hope in their unlikely survival, mirroring the way she can’t accept the loss of Niall. After experiencing growth aboard the Saghani and accepting the other losses in her life, she is she able to acknowledge that the terns have probably died. As she lets go of her hope for the terns, she has a violent emotional and physical reaction; she is simultaneously letting go of the relationship that the birds represented.
Against all odds, the terns survive and complete their migration. Their perseverance symbolizes that Franny and Niall’s connection endures even after his death.
The Ocean
The ocean is a central motif in Migrations. Much of the narrative takes place at sea. Even away from the Saghani, bodies of water are a constant in Franny’s life. Water is by turn lifegiving and destructive, symbolizing the indomitable power of nature which exists outside of, and indifferently to, humanity.
Water is a multifaceted element in that it is essential to sustain life, but can also be deadly. Franny is bonded to the ocean; she feels most alive in the ever-moving waters. The wildness of the waves reflects the wildness in her. Yet when her traumatic past catches up, she tries several times to drown herself in the same waters that make her feel alive. The motif of drowning recurs with Franny’s daughter: Franny’s daughter is stillborn, “drowned by [Franny’s] body” (205). Franny describes the tragedy in a way that indicates that she blames herself and her oceanlike wildness for her daughter’s death.
Franny’s voyage on the Saghani puts the deadly power of the ocean on full display, as the crew must fight through several storms. At other moments, the ocean’s beauty gives Franny hope and the drive to continue her quest. Her trip to the Arctic is ultimately a journey of healing; her submersion in the Weddell Sea at the novel’s end is a form of rebirth which begins a new chapter of her life.
While the ocean’s impact can feel personal, the opposite is true. The ocean is not good or evil—it exists just to exist, and any joy or grief gleaned from it is a projection of Franny’s psyche. In a world increasingly devastated by humanity’s careless interventions, the ocean remains undeniably alive. It is the ultimate symbol of nature’s impersonal power, which will always win out over human intervention.
Cages
Throughout Migrations, Franny has several encounters with once-wild animals confined by humans. From Penny’s ornate cages full of exotic birds to the last gray wolf kept at MER, each encounter disturbs Franny. The caged animals of Migrations represent humanity’s self-centered relationship to nature. The species of the imprisoned animals predate humans by eons and, if left to their own devices, could easily outlive humanity. Yet humans have reduced them to commodities, feeling entitled to use them for personal gain or entertainment. The recurring symbolism of cages draws the reader’s attention to this power dynamic.
Cages also symbolize the confinement Franny feels when trying to force herself to live a domestic life. Franny is wild at heart and desires the “soaring” freedom of a bird. She often compares herself to birds, “the thing with feathers” one moment and “a diving cormorant” the next (98, 199). Franny shares her first kiss with Niall inside Penny’s bird cage. Although it’s a happy moment, the setting foreshadows how their marriage will make her feel like a trapped wild thing herself. Later in the narrative, as Niall holds Franny closely, he asks of his embrace— “does it feel like a cage?” (158). She responds that it doesn’t. For the first time, she is able to differentiate the bond of love from the binding of captivity.
