65 pages • 2-hour read
Happy Land
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism and death.
Flowers
The flowers throughout the novel symbolize roots and history, specifically Mother Rita’s connection to her past. The physical nature of flowers, which grow and have roots, reflect the fact that Mother Rita’s—and then Nikki’s by the novel’s end—history is alive and flourishing through her. Flowers go through cycles of death and regrowth, just as each new generation in Mother Rita’s family builds their own lives while still remaining connected to their history. The flowers emphasize the theme of The Importance of Collective History to the Self, as one flower is important on its own, yet can also be arranged in a bouquet, just as Nikki learns to see herself as part of her wider family history.
Flowers are an important part of Mother Rita’s life, as she cares for her garden each day and sells the flowers in town. She has a true love of gardening, explaining to Nikki how she “believe[s] the garden has added years to [her] life” (38). Additionally, the reader learns through the shifting narrative that flowers also played a pivotal role in Luella’s life. When she needed to raise money to buy the kingdom land back from Weaver, she took up gardening, arranging and selling flowers in town for extra money. Mother Rita and Luella’s narratives reflect each other, emphasizing not only the importance of flowers but the deep connection that their lives have to each other. Flowers serve not only as a hobby and source of enjoyment for both, but also as a source of survival.
In the final moments of the novel, Nikki looks out over a field of lavender, learning that her name came from that specific species. As she does so, she thinks of Mother Rita and her entire ancestry, noting how “[i]n this field, once tended by men and women stepping out of their past and into their future, [she] will seek the footsteps they left behind and [she] will walk in them” (348). In this way, the final lines of the text emphasize the importance of flowers to Nikki’s life. As a way to remember their legacy, she promises herself that she will “plant lots of flowers” (348).
Religion and Faith
One important motif throughout the novel is religion, which plays a significant role in the past narrative of Luella and the other members of the Kingdom. From the beginning, the importance of religion is clear, as Luella’s father is a pastor who holds weekly informational meetings in his church, despite the dangers from the KKK. Then, when they get to their new home, he immediately builds a church and serves his entire life as the kingdom’s minister. When Nikki asks for his advice on what to do about William and Robert, Papa responds that “[t]he Bible say if the unbelieving depart, let him depart” (142). This quote is from 1 Corinthians 7:15. The words reassure Luella, as she realizes that “peace” could be found in ruling the kingdom with Robert, emphasizing the importance of religion in her life.
Additionally, the departure of the settlers from their old land into the kingdom is a Biblical allusion to Moses and his journey to Canaan. After years of persecution and enslavement in Egypt, Moses leads the Israelites to freedom, traveling for 40 years to the Promised Land in Canaan. Their journey is long and difficult, often spiritually taxing for the travelers. Similarly, the journey that Luella and the others undergo is a difficult walk, with several people turning back after they lose their faith in ever finding the land that William promised they would. At the end of their journey is the Kingdom of the Happy Land, a representation of the Promised Land found in the Bible and a place for Luella and the others to finally be free.
The Graveyard
The ancestral graveyard on Mother Rita’s land symbolizes the past, specifically the history that Nikki tries to uncover. At the novel’s start, the graves are unmarked and hidden on Mother Rita’s land, just as the truth of Nikki’s history and ancestry is hidden from her. Despite this, the graveyard has been there for centuries, only becoming important to Nikki when she chooses to visit her grandmother and become part of her life.
Initially, Nikki fixates on trying to get grave markers, searching for them online and telling herself that she needs to order them. Instead of trying to understand the importance of the graves or the people in them, Nikki instead obsesses over how they look and their lack of perceived importance if they are not properly marked. However, she gradually learns to value the importance of the people within the graves, learning about their histories and allowing them to become part of herself.
At the end of the text, she and her mother use the information from Mother Rita and their own research to learn the names and locations of whatever graves they can. While Nikki does finally create markers for them, she does so only after she truly learns of their importance.
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