64 pages • 2 hours read
Mary Downing HahnClosed for the Season
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
The Written Word
The written word is a crucial motif that plays an important role in Closed for the Season. As a librarian herself, Hahn is likely more than aware of the important role that libraries can play in a child’s life. The library is at the very center of the boys’ investigation. They use the library to make copies of the newspaper and Mrs. Donaldson’s letters, and they even use it to find the old maps of the Magic Forest. The copies of the letters and maps ultimately prove to be an indispensable part of the boys’ investigation, without which the police’s case against Mr. DiSilvio may well have also fallen apart. Though certain people like Rhoda, Anthony, and Mrs. Forbes may view reading with some scorn, books and intellect are things that are strongly upheld as positive traits and hobbies in the narrative. People who do not read, like Silas Phelps or Billy Jarmon, are ridiculed, often by Arthur himself, for their seeming lack of intellect.
Outside of the more practical ways that reading helps the boys in the novel, it also offers certain characters an emotional outlet. This can be seen, for example, in the letters that Mrs. Donaldson leaves behind for Violet. Though they are simply words on a page, they mean the world to Violet, and she is devastated when the police have to take them away for the investigation. Violet is able to connect with her deceased mother through reading. This is similar to Arthur’s own relationship with books. While they are in the cemetery, Arthur tells Logan that his mother does not call or write. Devoid of any connection to his mother, including that of the written word, he “used to pretend Eleanor Beale was [his] mother” and that they “were reading that book together” (87). Reading and books thus seem to take the place of certain relationships in Closed for the Season; though of practical use, they also fill an emotional void that the characters may have once had.
Names
Names can symbolize a variety of different things; as proper nouns, they are designators of different people and things. Names, too, can be used to label and point out the commonalities of a group. The risk, however, is that the commonalities of a group may morph into an over-generalization and eventually evolve into prejudice. Names in the novel carry a great deal of meaning and often symbolize the character’s motives and moral fiber. The clearest examples of this are Arthur and Violet. Arthur, with his bravery and fondness for literature, shares a name with King Arthur, the mythical British figure. Arthur even tells Logan that he once dressed up as King Arthur while at the Magic Forest. Arthur, like his literary counterpart, is full of daring, and often leads Logan into adventure.
Violet’s name, on the other hand, calls to mind the phrase, “shrinking violet.” A colloquial turn of phrase, the descriptor is meant to describe a shy, meek individual. This fits Violet perfectly and seems to further encapsulate her character. With Violet seemingly always destined to be scared, the readers are left unsure if she ever manages to overcome her fear. With Silas’s arrest, Violet’s letter from her mother and the final gingerbread man are taken away to be used in court. Perhaps Hahn means to suggest that though Violet is not yet ready to face her fears, the she may soon be.
Outside of the definition of their first names, surnames have a similarly important role. Being part of the “Jarmon/Phelps extended family,” for example, immediately seems synonymous with a life of crime (77). Danny Phelps’s ultimate decision not to shoot Mr. DiSilvio, however, disproves the notion that one’s name can seal one’s fate. Just because Danny is a Phelps does not mean that he will turn out like his father. In fact, Danny even comments that he will not be going to jail. In Closed for the Season, names seem to suggest the possibilities of one’s future, though they do not etch one’s destiny in stone.
Houses
Houses and their appearances are a recurring motif in Closed for the Season that seem to symbolize the people to whom they belong. For example, upon meeting Logan, Arthur tells him about the wealthy people and their homes. He says, “You can’t really see any oaks from there because they cut them all down to build a bunch of big expensive houses” (6). The wealthy people are portrayed as money-hungry individuals who are more than willing to take advantage of and exploit the environment around them for their own benefit. This comment at the beginning of the novel foreshadows Mr. DiSilvio’s involvement in embezzling money not only from the Magic Kingdom but also from other businesses in the area.
The Forbeses’ purchasing of the old home is likewise full of symbolism. Though the Forbeses are not as well off as Anthony or Rhoda, they nonetheless continue to make superficial as well structural changes to the house. In fact, it is quite like Mrs. Forbes, who wants Logan to have friends “who [are] popular, plays sports, gets good grades, fits in. Someone whose father makes big bucks. Someone who lives in a fancy house” (109). There are parallels between the Forbeses’ rehabilitation of the house and Mrs. Forbes’s growing insistence that they present themselves like the DiSilvios. It is evident, then, that the state of the houses symbolizes the different characters. Hahn, for example, is quick to point out that Violet, despite having left Silas, continues to live on a mobile home on the Phelps property. It is only when she is able to physically bring her children to Mrs. Jenkins’s that she able to take the first step to overcoming her fear and uncertainty.
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