Sue Monk Kidd\'s Invention of Wings Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis: Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings
Sue Monk Kidd uses symbol and theme in The Invention of Wings to tell the story of Sarah Grimke, her sister Nina and Sarah’s slave Handful, whom Sarah vows to help to freedom over the course of her life. The novel is based on the historical character of Sarah Grimke, an abolitionist and activist. To tell the story, Kidd uses the black triangles that Handful’s mother stitches into her quilts to symbolize flight and freedom; likewise, the feathers that Handful and her mother collect to stuff the quilt symbolize the spiritual wings with which one can fly to freedom. Kidd also applies the theme of power in both positive and negative terms: Sarah’s trauma at witnessing the brutality of slavery causes her to develop a stutter, which gives her a degree of powerlessness in terms of speaking her mind; likewise, her youth as a child prevents her from having much power in society. However, she obtains power by way of education: she reads everything in her father’s library (before he realizes this is giving her too much power), and then as an adult she becomes an ardent writer and uses the power of the pen to advocate for abolition. This paper show that the theme of power and the image of the wings work together to show that when power is aligned with a spiritual good like that symbolized by the feathers and the birds in Charlotte’s quilts, real positive social change can be effected.
The symbol of the feather as a literary device serving to bring to mind the need to uplift one’s mind and heart to higher things is first provided to the reader when Sarah goes to call Handful’s mother Charlotte, who is stooping over to pick up feathers from the ground. The feathers are used to make comfortable quilts and beds for those who are in power. Sarah only recognizes them as “tidbits she scavenged…small downy feathers” (Kidd 30). However, these tidbits have the ability to soar upward, as the reader next sees when startles Charlotte, who loses the feather, which “fluttered off on the sea wind. It flitted to the top of the high brick wall that enclosed the yard, snagging in the creeping fig” (Kidd 31). The feather symbolizes the spirit that constantly yearns to be free, to climb over the brick walls erected by society (slavery) and the social contracts that prevent the spirit from achieving its aim even when it manages to soar (the creeping fig representing in this sense social mores and doctrines that Sarah must eventually battle as an adult with her pen). Charlotte and Handful are always mindful of the spirit and the desire for freedom, which is symbolized in the quilts that they make with the black triangles—birds that represent the yearning of the slaves who make the comfy things for their masters.
The theme of power is connected to the symbol of the feather. As Campbell points out, Kidd is seeking a way in her books to empower women. For that reason, Kidd contrasts the state of those who have power and those who do not by describing who has the feathers: “the white people on their feather beds, the slaves on their little pallets thin as wafers” (Kidd 140). Yet the fact that Charlotte and Handful collect the feathers that fill the beds shows that the slaves are in touch with the spirit of freedom—and even if they cannot possess, they carry it with them in their intellects and in their hearts and wills: “The shape she loved was a triangle,” Kidd writes (5). “A triangle on a quilt stands for a blackbird wing” (Kidd 59). The blackbird wing symbolizes the souls of black folk—a phrase popularized by former slave W.E.B. DuBois and used by Wilson to discuss the meaning of racial identity in the 19th century: the black triangles symbolizes souls yearning to fly over the wall of slavery like the feather that rushes upward on the sea winds early in the novel.
This use of symbolism works together with the theme of power: the slaves have the yearning for freedom, which they hold in their hearts and minds, but they lack the power to make freedom possible. That is where Sarah and her sister come into play. Sarah loses the power of speech because of her stutter—the result of her trauma at seeing the brutality of slavery. She also lacks power as a child. However, she gains power from her father’s library and all its books. Kidd conveys this theme throughout the novel: the library serves as Sarah’s introduction into ideas—she reads about Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, and many others. The library allows her to unlock the knowledge that is kept from so many. Kidd describes this them in this manner: “Sarah slipping down the staircase to her father’s library as the slaves lay asleep on the floor outside the bedroom doors” (Kidd 367). Sarah is like a thief in the night, stealing the knowledge that will empower her and the sleeping slaves. She uses the library to teach Handful how to read and write. With this knowledge, Handful is later able to receive Sarah’s letters and escape to freedom. Sarah’s power, which is gained through her access of the library, allows her to become an abolitionist with letters—promoting the end of slavery so that the whole of the country may be changed for the better. It is not just Handful who is brought into the world of power—but all people. The spirit that Handful nurses joins with the power that Sarah discovers, and the two intertwine to become a movement. Nina represents this movement—a merger of spirit and power—constantly pushing for total abolition for the whole U.S.
In conclusion, Kidd uses symbolism—the feather, the black triangles—to convey the need for spirit and the yearning of the souls of black folk for freedom. She shows that the spirit and power must converge in order for change to take place. Sarah represents the power; Handful the spirit. Their synthesis is evident in Nina who pushes Sarah to go further even when she is reluctant. Together, the unification of spirit and power create an environment in which the subject of abolition becomes important to the whole nation.

Works Cited
Campbell, Colleen Carroll. "God & the Second Sex." First Things 176 (2007): 51.
Du Bois, W. E. B., & Marable, M. Souls of black folk. NY: Routledge, 2015.
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Invention of Wings. NY: Viking, 2014.
Wilson, Kirt H. "Towards a discursive theory of racial identity: The souls of black folk as
a response to nineteenth?century biological determinism." Western Journal of Communication 63.2 (1999): 193-215.