35 pages • 1-hour read
Socks
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Symbols & Motifs
The Brickers’ House
The Brickers’ house is the main setting of Socks, and it symbolizes The Search for Belonging Amid Shifting Familial Dynamics. The house itself is a location, but the shifting atmosphere within determines whether it is simply a house or also a home at different points in the story. When Socks is first adopted by the Brickers, the house is a home for him because he feels cared for and loved by the Brickers. However, once Charles William is born, the house seems less and less like a home to Socks because his feelings of neglect and abandonment keep him from believing he belongs with the Brickers. In this way, Bill and Marilyn are part of the structure of their home because their attitudes inform the difference between house and home. The united front Bill and Marilyn put forth in terms of raising Charles William and deciding Socks’s role in the house makes the couple a barrier to belonging.
When Socks is injured in Chapter 6, Bill and Marilyn’s barrier starts to crumble. Understanding the role they played in Socks’s feelings of abandonment allows them to take responsibility for their house not being a home that is welcoming to him. Likewise, when they let Socks back inside, and Socks later bonds with Charles William, Bill and Marilyn’s acceptance allows the house to become more of a home than it ever was. The belonging all the characters find at the end of the book symbolizes the role acceptance plays in making a home for humans and animals alike.
Brown Bear
Brown Bear symbolizes Overcoming Struggles in Changing Relationships to Form Lasting Bonds, particularly for Socks and Charles William. Brown Bear is a gift to Charles William from his aunt, who suggests Socks needs to lose weight. In this way, Brown Bear also becomes a symbol of the strife Socks experiences once the Brickers start feeding him less. Since this lack of food heavily contributes to Socks’s behavior and feelings of abandonment, Brown Bear is one of the factors responsible for Socks’s choice to act out. Brown Bear also highlights the discrepancy between Socks and Charles William. The family members who visit in Chapter 3, as well as Nana in Chapter 5, treat Charles William better than they treat Socks, which contributes to Socks’s feelings of neglect. Thus, Brown Bear represents how Socks is thrust aside, not only by the Brickers but by almost everyone else who believes that he is somehow less important because he is a pet—even though he is still a living creature with emotions and desires. During the bonding experience between Charles William and Socks in Chapter 7, Charles William tosses Brown Bear to Socks. This action symbolizes the moment Socks has found belonging. Since Brown Bear is willingly given, the bear is no longer a symbol of Socks’s distance from the family. Rather, Brown Bear becomes the object linking Socks to Charles William and a sign that the baby and cat are a team.
Food
Food is a recurring motif in Socks that develops Adapting to New Situations Through Acceptance, Not Resistance. Socks’s changing relationship with food throughout the book shows how his physical hunger is an outward manifestation of how he is internally starved for attention. At the beginning of the book, when Socks feels loved by the Brickers, his appetite is directly proportional to the amount of activity he gets. After a rough first day with Charles William in the house in Chapter 2, Socks eagerly laps up the leftover baby formula because its sweet taste comforts him at a time when he does not receive comfort from anything else. This pattern continues through the following weeks as Socks becomes more internally starved for attention and, thus, grows more physically hungry and eats more. As a result, Socks gains weight from comfort eating, and when he is denied this single comfort, he grows agitated because there is nothing to take the place of the comfort food that gives him. As seen in Chapter 5, the sitter’s attention relieves Socks of his attention starvation, which also makes extra comfort food unnecessary. Socks’s relationship with food shows how he seeks comfort from new sources when old sources disappear and, further, how those new sources of comfort (such as food) can cause him to form unwanted or unhealthy habits.
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