51 pages • 1 hour read
Paris HiltonParis: The Memoir
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2023A 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
Spirograph
Hilton uses the metaphor of a spirograph numerous times in her novel. She says, “I don’t see time as linear; the ADHD brain processes past, present, and future as a Spirograph of interconnected events” (6). One time, she uses this metaphor when she discusses her father taking her from a New York City restaurant to be sent to Provo. She follows this scene with a discussion about Repo! The Genetic Opera. Hilton describes this as a father/daughter story about one loving father who makes a bad decision “to protect his fragile daughter” and another bad father who makes a good choice to “empower his damaged daughter” (162). She uses the spirograph motif to describe how she and her father are both of these groups of characters and also to describe how her mind moves from one topic to the next.
Hilton’s memoir sometimes flips from topic to topic in a near stream-of-consciousness style. She says, “It’s easy to follow my bliss because my bliss is whatever interests me at any given moment. My brain chemistry craves sensory input. Sounds, images, puzzles, art, motion, experiences” (7). This understanding of ADHD makes the spirograph an apt metaphor for her brain and her mental health condition.
Sunglasses
After Hilton turns 18 years old and is released from the residential schools, she hears of the fictional concept of magic glasses from the movie Big Daddy. In the movie, a person puts on magic glasses and nobody can see them. As a newly liberated person who does not know where she fits in the world, she starts wearing sunglasses as a way to hide herself.
The sunglasses tie in with the way that Hilton decides to take on a persona and present herself as a brand. In her late teens and twenties, she creates a character that is the traditionally stigmatized “dumb blonde.” She cultivates this image and expresses it in public, particularly in her role in The Simple Life. As she ages, she finds herself wanting to break free from this ditzy image, and she works to do that. She starts to see herself as a brand, and she tries to take part in activities that will benefit that brand, and she worries about events that could hurt her brands, such as her incarceration.
The sunglasses she mentions shortly after her release from the residential facilities symbolize the degree to which she wants to hide at times from people. She lives a very public life, but she keeps much to herself, not telling anyone in the world about what really happened to her in the schools until she is much older. Throughout her memoir, Hilton presents disguises, characters, and brands she cultivates with her life. She considers herself to be a performance artist.
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Repo! The Genetic Opera is a father/daughter story about one loving father who makes a bad decision “to protect his fragile daughter” and another bad father who makes a good choice to “empower his damaged daughter” (162). This is a symbol for the relationship that Hilton has with her own father. Hilton has many positive things to say about her ancestors who built, developed, and grew the family name. She is proud to be a Hilton. She says frequently how her father gives her good advice, and she likes that he is proud of some of her accomplishments.
Still, her father is half of the reason she was locked up in the residential school system. It is implied that the reason she gets out of the school early is because she threatened her father and told him that she would tell the Wall Street Journal all about her experiences in the schools. This paints her father in a bad light by implying that he only took her out to avoid bad publicity.
When she relates to Repo! The Genetic Opera, however, she recognizes that her father is not a bad person. He was trying to do the right thing, but he did not. Throughout her memoir, Hilton avoids pigeon-holing most people into categories of good or bad. She finds the relationship between fathers and daughters to be complicated, and hers is no exception.
