48 pages • 1 hour read
Sharon CreechGranny Torrelli Makes Soup
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.
Themes
The Power of Storytelling
This novel relies heavily on storytelling, as demonstrated by its unique structure. Very little happens in the present tense of the novel. Granny Torrelli makes some food with Rosie and Bailey, and Janine comes in to ask Bailey a question. There is a brief visit to Bailey’s house. Nonetheless, the novel builds complex characters with rich backstories across both generations who support one another. This “good zuppa” is made possible through the shared work of storytelling. Granny Torrelli’s stories elicit memories and realizations from Rosie; in turn, Rosie’s concerns and experiences prompt Granny Torrelli toward certain memories. This interplay captures the unifying nature of storytelling.
Another dimension of the power of storytelling is its transformational nature. Storytelling can turn the raw ingredients of experience into meaningful, digestible lessons about life. Granny Torrelli, for example, is able to shape her vast and “tangled” memories into useful stories that impart to Rosie and Bailey what they need to know to move forward in their relationship. Rosie wishes to have “the things in your [Granny Torrelli’s] head inside my head” (48), but Granny Torrelli warns her against it, wishing instead to have “a young head like yours, instead of this old head of mine,” which is very “crowded” (48-49). Storytelling is the mechanism by which Granny Torrelli transforms her “crowded” head’s contents into accessible wisdom for the children. Rosie and Bailey are learning to harness the power of storytelling too. Because they lack a wealth of experiences just yet, they need to invent content for their “plays.” Regardless, though, the plays in each case reveal heavy truths.
Storytelling also allows the children to hold onto their autonomy, even as an adult provides guidance. Rosie is a stubborn girl, Granny Torrelli observes, just like herself in her youth. Rosie therefore gets herself into trouble at times. Granny Torrelli could directly instruct Rosie what to do to overcome her complications in her relationship with Bailey. Instead, Granny Torrelli tells stories. These stories about Pardo and Violetta mirror what the children experience, but the stories do not instruct so much as offer perspective. Rosie and Bailey do not know how their story will end, but Granny Torrelli’s experiences provide possible outcomes that force the children to reflect on their actions. Granny Torrelli even punctuates her stories with trips to the bathroom or otherwise stepping out of the room, leaving space for the children to draw their own conclusions. Ultimately, the children indeed prove that they can learn from these stories. Though their own worldviews are limited by their age, they are capable of using Granny Torrelli’s more experienced worldview to grow.
The Importance of Forgiveness
The first half of the novel centers around the importance of forgiveness in relationships. Rosie and Bailey have been friends since they were babies. Like all people, they make mistakes, and they hurt each other numerous times. To maintain their relationship, they have to learn to forgive and to ask forgiveness, which entails admitting their mistakes. Granny Torrelli fosters their budding appreciation of the importance of forgiveness by sharing stories about the mistakes she made at their age. These stories, notably, do not always demonstrate success; more often, they help show the possible outcomes of failing to forgive or to ask forgiveness.
This theme is intertwined in the novel with the theme of The Value of Empathy. To understand why they must forgive or apologize (or both), the children must first come to understand what the other is feeling. When the novel opens, Rosie is very angry at Bailey because he was rude to her after she gave him what she thought would be the gift of learning to read Braille herself. Learning this skill would make them more similar, which should bring them closer together. Instead, her grand reveal of her new skill creates a rift between them. Rosie spends the first part of the novel coming to terms with the fact that she and Bailey are indeed different and that, in her efforts to take care of him, she has often failed to appreciate that he knows his own limitations, capabilities, and experiences best. Rosie grows when, instead of ruminating on her own pain or waiting for Bailey to come to her, she decides to go to his house right away and apologize. Bailey, in turn, had already crafted an apology to her.
Granny Torrelli and Pardo made the opposite choice. Neither apologized to the other or made an effort to even communicate once Granny Torrelli left Italy. Because of this choice, their relationship was never mended—any opportunity to do so was snatched away with Pardo’s death while the two were a continent apart. In line with the rest of Granny Torrelli’s stories, her confession of the poor outcome of failing to forgive and ask forgiveness makes Rosie appreciate that life does not last forever. It is important not only to forgive and ask forgiveness but also to do so the very moment one realizes it is necessary.
The Value of Empathy
The key task that Rosie and Bailey have to accomplish in the novel is to learn how to be good friends to each other. This friendship is hindered at times because they do not understand one another. They see the world and their actions through their own lens rather than through the lens of the other person. They want to be good friends, so when they notice the other’s needs, they go about trying to meet them. They begin to understand each other more through Granny Torrelli’s stories as well as through their own memories because these stories and memories allow them to garner insight both into their own mental states and into that of the other.
Rosie loves Bailey deeply and always has. She wants to help him in any way that she can, and she also wants to be like him in any way that she can. Unfortunately, sometimes her actions do not help either herself or Bailey. This is most clearly dramatized when she learns Braille. Braille is something that always separated them because Bailey could read Braille, but Rosie could not. Rosie tries to rectify this by learning it herself, but she does not realize that in the process, she takes away something that Bailey could claim as his own and take pride in. Because she did not understand the importance Bailey placed on being the only one of the two to know Braille, she ended up hurting him. She is then hurt by Bailey’s anger because she thinks that what she did was admirable. Once she begins to understand Bailey’s perspective, she realizes the harm she has caused, and she apologizes to him and mends their relationship. In this case, empathy and understanding lead directly to reconciliation through the offering and acceptance of forgiveness.
Bailey also allows his own metaphorical “blindness” get in the way of his relationship with Rosie. Bailey does not understand that Rosie is jealous until Granny Torrelli tells a story of her own jealousy. Once he realizes that Rosie is jealous, however, Bailey still stumbles, failing to appreciate the depth of his friend’s feelings. He does not fully grasp what this type of jealousy feels like until the moving van across the street arrives, and he feels it himself, realizing that Rosie might become close with the new boys across the street. The interplay of this theme with The Importance of Forgiveness is also important here, though, as it still takes Granny Torrelli’s final story to prompt Bailey to fix his relationship with Rosie. He is able to do this because he now more fully understands what it is that she feels.
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By Sharon Creech
