54 pages • 1 hour read
Wendy MassA Mango-Shaped Space
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2003A 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
Mango
Mango is the book’s primary symbol. Mia named him after the color of his meows, meaning that Mango is the first external symbol of her synesthesia. She found Mango as a kitten on the day of her grandfather’s funeral, sitting next to his grave. When Mango looked up at her, Mia saw her grandfather’s eyes staring up at her. Since that day, she has felt that Mango contains a piece of her grandfather’s soul. She believes that “people’s souls splinter off when they die” and that “[p]art of Grandpa is inside of Mango, part is in heaven dancing with Grams” (28).
Mango symbolizes Mia’s connection to her grandfather and serves as a way for her to process her own grief after his death. She later talks about the fact that she never really mourned her grandfather’s passing, because she still had a piece of him with her in Mango. When Mango dies, her grief is very intense, as she is not only grieving the loss of her beloved cat, but her grandfather as well.
Through Mango’s death, Wendy Mass generates some resolution to the theme of Grief and Healing. Mia has to think about her grandfather’s soul in heaven being reunited with the part that was in Mango to accept his death. Rather than hanging around on Earth, she sees her grandfather’s soul as being content and happy in heaven with Mango and her grandmother. In doing this, Mia finds comfort and is able to move through the process of Grief and Healing.
Mia’s Colors
The motif of Mia’s colors is woven through all of A Mango-Shaped Space. Mia lives in a more colorful world than that of her peers and family members. Her synesthesia and the colors that accompany it are Mia’s primary avenue for self-expression and her pursuit of Understanding Oneself. At first, Mia is afraid of the difference between herself and everyone else. She expresses a desire to ignore her colors. As Mia learns more about synesthesia, she is able to understand what her colors mean: The way that she sees the world is normal for her.
When Mia feels the most excited and free to be herself, she embraces her colors and allows herself to enjoy them. She describes listening to music:
The colors immediately and gently flow over me, energizing me, reminding me that I can still enjoy them. The glossy red-barnlike color of the violin, the silvery-bluish white of the flute, the school-bus yellow of the French horn. All of them layering on top of one another, changing, shifting, belonging, at that minute, only to me (23).
Mass uses vivid similes such as “red-barnlike” to evoke these colors in the reader’s imagination, making the reading experience itself sensory. Despite the difficulties that synesthesia causes her in school, Mia ultimately understands her colors as something unique and special.
Mia’s colors echo her internal state. Her colors are most vivid and vibrant when she is truly at ease and free to be herself, like when she is painting. Conversely, when Mia experiences grief, her colors disappear entirely. Though this is normal for some people with synesthesia, the narrative frames the disappearance of her colors as a major step on the path of Grief and Healing. Only by moving through her grief toward acceptance do the colors fully return, symbolizing her return to life and happiness.
Friendship Bracelets
Mia and Jenna’s friendship bracelets symbolize the girls’ long-standing connection. When the novel starts, Mia is proud of her bracelet, despite the fact that it is “gray and fraying and a little smelly” (12). Her friendship with Jenna is strong and both of them believe that nothing can tear them apart. As the story progresses and the girls’ friendship is tested, Mia’s feelings about the bracelet change. Mia and Jenna drift apart; Jenna thinks that Mia is avoiding her on purpose, and Mia believes that Jenna cannot understand what she is going through. At one point, Mia’s bracelet tears on a door latch. Although she is briefly upset by this, she decides to hide the tear from Jenna and even wonders whether she should still be wearing the bracelet at all. The torn bracelet symbolizes the rift in their friendship; Mia has been hiding things from Jenna, hoping that she won’t notice.
During the climax of the novel, Jenna demonstrates her fear that Mia is replacing her. She is upset with Mia for missing her birthday party, and does not know that Mia missed the party not because of the synesthesia meeting but because of Mango’s death. In her anger, she says “I bet you didn’t even wear our friendship bracelet to the meeting” (211). She does not know that Mia actually did wear the bracelet, and indeed has never taken it off. Their friendship, however damaged, is still there. Mass presents both girls as they learn about Being Considerate of Others so that their friendship can continue to flourish.
At the end of the novel, after the girls have made amends, Jenna cuts Mia’s friendship bracelet off. At first, Mia is shocked, and asks why she is “mad at [her] again” (225). However, Jenna presents Mia with a new friendship bracelet: a gold chain that matches one that Jenna is wearing. Jenna is providing both of them with a more permanent, grown-up representation of their friendship, one that cannot ever get torn, frayed, or tattered. After all the girls have gone through together, their friendship is stronger than ever before.
Related Titles
By Wendy Mass
