61 pages • 2 hours read
Tiffany D. JacksonThe Weight of Blood
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022A 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
Power, Race, and Racism in the Community
The Weight of Blood explores the legacy of racism and segregation in one small, isolated community and also how power, race, and racism function within that community. Specifically, the novel delves into ways white people have sometimes skirted laws intended to integrate public spaces. For example, by adhering to federal law and integrating their public schools, the town of Springville projects the image that it values equality. However, the citizens continue to segregate important events such as the high school prom by hosting it privately and thus admitting only white students. The racially segregated prom is easy for the rest of the country to ignore until Springville High School is in the news due to Jules’s racist bullying, at which point the nation’s attention turns not just to that incident but to larger issues such as the segregated prom. Unfortunately, the students’ original idea to integrate it (which came from Wendy) was not born of a genuine desire for progressive change but out of a desire to repair the school’s (and the students’) damaged reputation. As such, the integrated prom does not go well and ends in carnage fueled by some even more dramatic racist spectacles cooked up by Jules.
The novel is set in motion by the racialization of the bullying targeted at Maddy, emphasizing the centrality of this theme. Maddy has been bullied for years, but when the bullying becomes explicitly racialized due to her classmates’ discovery that she’s biracial, her powers become uncontrollable because this type of bullying is deeply harmful. The classmates’ treatment of Maddy is not the only issue, but it is a symptom of a larger problem of racial inequality and segregation, which is passed down through generations and even celebrated under the guise of “tradition.” When debating integrating prom, Jason says, “I don’t see a reason to combine proms. Springville has been doing this for years. Why change it now?” (91), claiming that anyone who attends integrated prom is an “animal.” Tradition is so strong that it often overpowers logic and even morality—Jason’s argument literally hinges on one point: that they’ve been racially segregating prom for generations, so they might as well keep doing it because it evokes nostalgia and makes the parents and students feel connected to a segregated past. This might seem like a weak argument, but half the school and community feel the same way, and two proms still occur despite a large effort to integrate prom. The idea of “tradition” is so powerful that it’s probably the only force that really rivals Maddy’s powers in the novel.
In Springville, power is based on money, status, family, and finding loopholes to laws, all of which someone like Jules has, allowing her to effortlessly “rise” to the top of the community and bully everyone else with no repercussions. Maddy’s power comes from a different, unfamiliar source, making others in the community fear it. Jules may not be a witch, but she still has “powers” she uses for evil purposes. In this way, she’s more of a villain than Maddy because she consciously uses her “powers” for evil, whereas Maddy attempts to control her powers but is pushed beyond her limit by Jules’s racism.
The Effects of Bullying and Exclusion
The Weight of Blood can be read as a parable about the extent of the dangers associated with bullying. As the podcast host Tanya says, “If people knew revenge of this magnitude was even a remote possibility, there would be far less incidents of racial injustice in the world” (404). Whereas many others blame Maddy for massacring the town, Tanya sees that the true blame lies in racialized bullying, which is a side effect of Springville’s general atmosphere of racial inequality and segregation. Although the bullying becomes explicitly racialized after Maddy’s classmates discover that she’s biracial, she was bullied for years prior to this, and the bullying was still based on Maddy being different from her peers. For example, she was bullied for her 1950s-style clothing and her quiet demeanor that resulted from her being kept inside the home for the better part of her first 12 years of life. Maddy was excited to start school and make her first friend but is immediately excluded and targeted by the other kids, who seem to have known each other for years and already been socialized together. Throughout the text, various characters reflect that a certain moment of bullying or exclusion was the point of no return and that if Maddy had not experienced that specific instance of bullying, all those people would still be alive. However, it is really the compounded effects of years of bullying and exclusion that lead Maddy’s powers beyond that breaking point.
Different moments that are blamed for the carnage include the fact that it rained during Maddy’s gym class, Jules throwing the pencil in Maddy’s hair, Jules dressing in a Maddy costume using blackface, Jules dumping white paint on Maddy at prom, Sheriff West going home early to eat dinner, and Kenny not making friends with Maddy on her first day of school. Removing any one of these incidents would not have prevented the carnage because Maddy experienced compounded trauma over years of bullying and abuse. Isolating the blame to a particular person or moment frees the community from its greater responsibility and allows people to point at the problem outside themselves. It’s true that the paint was the last straw, but if Jules hadn’t had the idea to pour paint on Maddy’s head, she probably would have had some other, equally horrific idea that would have been the last straw. In her testimony, Jules argues that it was unreasonable for Maddy to kill hundreds of people over some paint. This perspective ignores the years of bullying and abuse that Maddy endured prior to the paint and the racialized tones of the paint prank as well as other bullying Jules has committed. Although she didn’t always know Maddy was biracial, Jules and others still bullied Maddy (and Kali and other characters) based on identity, choosing to further oppress groups that are already oppressed and choosing to demand that people conform to rigid expectations based on their gender, race, and socioeconomic class.
Kenny’s reflection that things might have been different if he’d befriended Maddy on her first day of school makes the most sense out of any character theories on the point of no return. In reality, Maddy had already been bullied and excluded by her father for years prior to entering school, which is why she was so looking forward to making a friend—this would give her hope that not everyone is like her father and that it’s possible for someone to accept and love her for who she is. It was not Kenny’s sole responsibility to befriend Maddy, but having a friend would have helped her immensely. Seeing her father’s rejection mirrored by her classmates and the community at large, Maddy felt helpless that she could ever experience love, joy, or self-acceptance. The long-term effects of bullying are severe, but the novel also suggests that, while carnage does occur, even then, it’s still not too late for Maddy to develop real relationships and experience some type of joy and purpose. Through Kenny, her mother, and even Wendy, Maddy starts to see the possibility for healing, which would benefit her as well as everyone she comes in contact with.
The Potential for Redemption and Change
Although The Weight of Blood does not contain an explicit happy ending, the book ends on a note of possible redemption and hope for Maddy. Although her powers have caused great destruction, they also clearly have the potential to be used in helpful, productive ways. The harder Maddy works at her powers, the more control and strength she gains, but what she hasn’t yet mastered by the end of the novel’s main events is the ability to control the link between her emotions and her powers. When calm, Maddy is able to perform what might be called “miracles,” but when put in traumatic situations, her powers run amok, taking over with the apparent goal of protecting Maddy (and Kenny) at all costs. Maddy has been studying the wrong type of magic (telekinesis), so it’s unclear whether or not she could learn to control her powers when in the midst of trauma. However, there is a way she could reduce the number of traumatic situations she finds herself in, which is by escaping Springville into an uncertain future that is nonetheless more hopeful than the future originally planned for her (staying with Papa). The future is not spelled out, and the narrator does not reveal what happens to Maddy, leaving the reader to imagine this hopeful future for themselves.
In Springville, Maddy’s life was a constant state of trauma. Ironically, Papa’s belief in the possibility of redemption translated into abuse of Maddie. Papa believed that “redemption” for Maddy would entail getting rid of her powers through prayer and “love,” as he attempted to do with his own mother. Papa wants Maddy to change in ways that are impossible: He wants her to become white, and he wants her to stop being a “witch.” Both of these parts of her identity were inherited by birth and cannot be changed, but with the right type of love and upbringing, Maddy could find value in her authentic self and control her powers. However, Papa and others try to squash these qualities out of Maddy, refusing to see her or love her for who she truly is. Maddy’s race and inherited identity as a witch are not inherently toxic, but these factors are blamed in place of others’ toxic refusal to accept differences.
Despite the toxic effects of Papa’s strategy to alter Maddy’s true identity, as well as the town’s legacy of racism and segregation, Maddy’s mother’s journal suggests that there is a way for Maddy to heal by embracing joy, learning control, and escaping traumatic situations. She writes, “You must learn to control it. Or it will control you. But do not be a doormat. You can ease the pain by leaving all that you know. Become so drunk on life and love that it blinds you to the hate threatening to drown you” (126). Embracing joy is a key, but Maddy goes about it in the wrong way at first because she receives misguided advice. Mrs. Morgan argues that embracing joy by going to prom would be an act of resistance for Maddy. There is joy in spending time with Kenny, but their joy is cut short due to pervasive abuse. To fully embrace joy, Maddy will need to escape Springville because the social factors complicate Maddy’s control of her magic powers. With her mother, Maddy could learn to control her powers, avoid trouble, and live a joyful, productive life somewhere out of the public eye.
Other characters also highlight the potential for redemption and change. Kenny’s journey parallels Maddy’s because he learns to embrace his authenticity and find joy in a truthful way, rather than pursuing a false version of joy that was constructed using other peoples’ problematic and toxic expectations. Presumably, Kenny leaves with Maddy so that he can enjoy true liberation, rather than the dream of fame that his dad wanted him to live, in which he would always be bound by racist and classist expectations about how he should live and who he should love. Wendy also develops the potential for change and redemption because, although she’s motivated by her own reputation at the beginning, she resolves to do the right thing after prom even though nobody can ever know about it. She helps Maddy escape, thereby atoning for her participation in bullying Maddy.
Different characters embrace redemption in different ways. Change and growth are possible for everyone, even Jules, though she refuses her multiple chances for redemption and instead chooses to continue lying to herself and everyone else. Likewise, Papa has the chance to change by embracing Maddy’s true self and helping her make her way in life, but he refuses this opportunity and chooses death instead. While the potential for redemption may exist in all, it cannot happen without intention and reflection, and each individual needs to work to heal before change can take place.
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By Tiffany D. Jackson
