57 pages • 1-hour read
Play Nice
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination, mental illness, child abuse, self-harm, and physical abuse.
Names
Female character names form an important motif in the text, as they are often symbolic and reveal aspects of a character’s motivation and role within the story. Many names come directly from ancient Greek mythology. Leda was an Aetolian princess who married the king of Sparta. One night, she slept with her husband and Zeus, who appeared to her as a swan, and she became pregnant with both men’s children. Leda Barnes, speaking metaphorically, sleeps in two beds too: First, she is an unlikeable woman in many respects (which aligns her with her mother), but she is also unwilling to openly oppose her father. Clio also mentions that Leda and their aunt, Helen, are both cut from the same “rigid bitch” cloth, which is appropriate because ancient Leda was the mother of Helen of Troy. Leda’s name symbolizes her desire to appease two sides of herself: The one that longs for independence and self-actualization, and the one that longs for the love and acceptance of men.
Daphne was the daughter of a river god, a young woman who was averse to love and marriage, and who ran from Apollo when he amorously pursued her. Ultimately, Daphne’s father turned her into a laurel tree when she begged for his help to elude the god, a move that ended her human life but prevented Apollo from overpowering her. Likewise, Daphne Barnes is not interested in men, and her father’s support of her is dubious at best. He wishes his daughters would all “settle down” in a very traditional (i.e., heteronormative) way, and Leda is the only one to oblige him in this. The name symbolizes Daphne’s burgeoning independence but tenuous reliance on her father’s goodwill, even when it’s predicated on her obedience.
Clio was the muse of history, one of nine goddesses associated with inspiration and the arts and humanities. This association with history is especially appropriate given Clio Barnes’s desire to uncover the “truth” about Alexandra’s life and the sisters’ history with her. Her name symbolizes this desire to understand what happened in the past so that she can make sense of her life in the present.
Finally, Alexandra was another name for Cassandra, a prophet who was cursed by Apollo when she rejected him. Although she always told the truth, no one ever believed her, according to the terms of the curse. This made her a tragic figure, especially as she was eventually murdered by a jealous wife when King Agamemnon took her as a concubine. Likewise, Alex Barnes became equally tragic when James turned her daughters against her and tried to erase her and her influence from their lives. Her name symbolizes her character’s tragic trajectory and early death.
Snake Charm
Clio’s snake charm is a symbol that highlights Women’s Likability as a Prerequisite for Empathy and Safety and alludes to the temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. When Clio receives the charm as a gift from a friend, she says, “[it] suits my style better than a heart or key or flower or whatever” (9). A heart or flower, for example, might be more fitting for a “likeable” woman such as Amy, but not one who is “edg[y],” like Clio. That she receives it the same night that she learns of Alex’s death is not a coincidence: It represents her similarities with her mother, a woman who refused to conform to her husband’s idea of the ideal wife and mother and instead chose to voice her opinions loudly.
After Father John leaves, Alex writes, “I felt silly for inviting him over, foolish for thinking I could get help from any man, even a holy man. Perhaps especially a holy man. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, all women are sinners. We invented the enterprise after all. Eve plucked the fruit from the tree” (139). Eve didn’t act alone, however; she was tempted by Satan, in the guise of a serpent. This makes the snake an apt metaphor for women’s “disobedience” and ability to “corrupt” men.
As Clio learns more about her mother from Alex’s own perspective, Clio develops more empathy for Alex and the way she was misrepresented by James. Clio’s love for her snake charm also grows rapidly during this time. As Clio becomes less “likable” and more “difficult,” James begins to think of her as “crazy,” the same way he characterized Alex when she behaved in ways he disliked. In the end, Clio gives the charm to the demon, a gift to appease it so that it will let her go. In giving it up, Clio symbolically relinquishes a part of herself associated with her willingness to break social rules. She doesn’t want to “play nice” as her mother learned to do with the demon; nor does she want the struggles associated with being an “unlikeable” woman in a society that refuses them safety. Clio must find a middle ground in order to survive, and giving up the snake charm signifies her attempt to do so.
Clio’s Burn
Clio’s burn scar is a symbol that highlights The Problem of Contested Memory and Perceptions. She does not remember how she got the scar, but everyone in her life blames Alex. However, Clio reports, no one is ever “keen” to talk about the specifics, and she later learns from her sisters that this is because Alex wasn’t directly responsible for the burn at all.
In fact, Leda and Daphne witnessed Clio burning herself—an action that she claimed was motivated by the demon—and James convinced Leda and Daphne to say that they saw Alex burn Clio in an act of physical abuse. James justified this lie by saying that Alex was essentially responsible, a narrative that Daphne, at least, continues to believe in adulthood. However, Leda later admits that she knew of the demon and agreed to the lie anyway because Alex was verbally abusive to her, and Leda desperately wanted to get away from Alex. All these differences in the sisters’ recollections of the facts behind Clio’s scar capture some version of truth, highlighting their competing memories and how difficult it can be to understand someone else’s version.
Later, Clio burns herself again when she is under the influence of the demon in the house. It scabs over, creating a nasty blister, and this blister bursts just as she finds her father’s Google searches about involuntary psychiatric holds. Representative of the trauma she experiences in the home—trauma no one believes, similar to Alexandra’s—the burn emphasizes Women’s Likability as a Prerequisite for Empathy and Safety. When she pats away the blood and pus, she says, “the burn looks like a pale eye staring back at me. Watching. Hello” (270). Through this simile, she compares the burn’s appearance to the eye of the demon, the agent of her trauma, an entity allowed to torture both her and Alexandra simply because they proved to be “difficult” in ways James frowned upon.
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