The Fireplace Symbol Analysis

The fireplace in the Hiddles’ Kentucky farmhouse symbolizes the hidden nature of people’s true thoughts, feelings, and motivations, as well as the idea that different people’s stories are often intertwined with one another. After Momma leaves Sal and Dad, Dad begins to chip away at a plaster wall in their house. This is a symbolic act in and of itself: just as Dad is trying to expose what’s behind the plaster, he and Sal are also trying to understand Momma’s private reasons for leaving them. Once they find out that Momma isn’t coming back (readers eventually learn that she died in a bus accident), Dad shows Sal that he’s uncovered a hidden brick fireplace behind the wall. The fact that he uncovers this secret feature of the house just after learning that Momma has died further associates the fireplace with Momma’s mysterious story—he even writes Momma’s name, Chanhassen, on the grout between the bricks.

Indeed, Sal reflects that the story of why Momma left and how she died is hidden behind the story of her friend Phoebe Winterbottom’s mother’s disappearance, just as the fireplace was hidden behind the wall. By this, Sal means that she only begins to understand and empathize with her mother when she reflects on her family’s story alongside the Winterbottoms’ parallel story, which allows her to think about Momma’s inner life and decisions in a more nuanced, objective way. In this way, the fireplace hidden behind the wall corresponds with the idea that people’s true stories are often private, complex, and unexpected—and sometimes they’re even nested in other stories.

At the end of the book, Sal, Dad, and Gramps move back into the farmhouse. Looking at the fireplace, Sal wonders if there’s a third story hidden behind it, just as Momma’s story (which Sal thinks of as the fireplace) was hidden behind Phoebe’s (which Sal thinks of as the plaster wall). She thinks that maybe Gram and Gramps’s story—which they told her parts of as she told them Phoebe’s story—is hidden behind Momma’s. The fireplace thus represents the interwoven nature of people’s stories, and the idea that hearing and telling others’ stories can help a person better understand their own.