Doll Bones

Black continues to create a gothic atmosphere through language. When Zach is woken from sleep by rocks at his bedroom window, “he [can’t] help imagining the long, bony fingers of the trees scraping against the glass” (42). Here, Black personifies the trees, giving them the eerie and human ability to scrape with fingers. The fingers also allude to the Great Queen. Like the “bony fingers of the trees,” the Queen is made of bone china.

Zach’s perception of the Queen also builds foreboding. The Queen “seem[s] demonic,” and “her eyes stay[] open instead of closing the way they should [], as though she [is] still watching Zach” (45-46). Black personifies the doll with sentient qualities, such as the ability to open her eyes and watch. This, coupled with Zach’s unease, highlights the Queen’s supernatural nature. Black continues to hint that the supernatural is real when Tinshoe Jones, the donut shop owner, and the restaurant waitress make comments about the trio’s “blond friend,” who can only be the ghost of the blond-haired Eleanor.

The Silver Hills junkyard symbolizes the curiosity children have as they try to make sense of the world. Silver Hills derives its name from Zach and his friends, a product of the rods, machine parts, and batteries that shine like “mountains of silver” (44). The junkyard becomes a prominent location for the children with its folklore of silver trolls, dwarves, and princesses who call it home. It represents The Importance of Stories and Escapism, as Zach and his friends take something ugly from the real world and transform it into something beautiful, interesting, and magical.

At the beginning of the novel, Zach doesn’t think like his parents, who lack optimism and seem to suffer from repeated unhappy endings. He chooses to see the same magic and possibility in the world that he finds in his make-believe stories. When his dad takes away his action figures, Zach converts to his parents’ way of thinking. He wonders “whether growing up [is] learning that most stories turn[] out to be lies” (57). Unable to escape to his fictional worlds, Zach struggles to cope.

The trio of friends apply skills that they learn from their games to their real-life quest, that of putting Eleanor to rest. This illustrates The Formative Nature of Play. Zach treats the quest as he does the make-believe ones, adopting William’s persona to make brave decisions that push the trio forward on their journey. He believes that he’s “going on a real adventure, the kind that change[s] you” (60). This shows how stories and adventure have the power to transform. The playful element of the quest evokes Zach’s determination to “be the kind of person who [is] interesting enough to have a ghost talk to [him]” and to succeed at quests (70). He doesn’t want to be like his father, who became bitter and miserable after abandoning his family for years.

Poppy and Zach’s dreams of Eleanor provide Eleanor’s backstory. The broken china collection that Eleanor’s aunt treasures symbolizes what will become of Eleanor if she allows her aunt to shape her and what can happen to children who generally aren’t well cared for. Some pieces of the collection are too small, like children forced to grow up before they’ve properly developed. Others are frightening, like how Zach’s father’s rough childhood molded him into a bitter adult. There are misshapen pieces that “had smeared or blistered before they were fired” (81), like children handled too forcefully in their developmental stage, preventing them from discovering their true selves. Eleanor is forced to tiptoe around these pieces to avoid breaking any but eventually breaks herself when falling off the roof. In spite of her aunt, Eleanor manages to hide things under her bed that she fashions into makeshift dolls, evidencing the irresistible draw to childhood play.

Zach’s childhood has similarities to Eleanor’s. Like Eleanor’s aunt, Zach’s father is controlling. Like with Eleanor, this leads to Zach’s suffering. Through Zach and Eleanor, Black shows how parental figures can damage children by stifling them.