56 pages • 1 hour read
Laura Ingalls WilderBy the Shores of Silver Lake
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1939A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Music
Throughout the novel, music serves as a motif for the theme of the strength of family bonds. In particular, Laura associates music with her father, who plays the fiddle and loves to sing. Music helps to describe the family’s structure and dynamics. Both in song and in life, Pa leads the Ingalls, and they are all in harmony with one another. Singing together helps the Ingalls bond during the frigid winter months when they are the only people within 40 miles. Surviving on the frontier involves a great deal of labor and hardship, and music offers a way for them to relax and enjoy one another’s company after a long day filled with toil. Despite the aforementioned hardships, the Ingalls approach life with a spirit of joy and gratitude. Music plays a key role in their celebrations, such as Christmas and their first night on the homestead. Whenever Pa asks Laura to bring him his fiddle, a festive mood is sure to ensue.
The lyrics that the Ingalls sing reflect their experiences and illustrate the values that bind them together as a family. For example, they sing about self-reliance and loving-kindness in Chapter 14: “Then love your neighbor as yourself / As the world you go traveling through / And never sit down with a tear or a frown / But paddle your own canoe!” (148). The surveyors’ house is a fitting setting for such a song. The Ingalls must fend for themselves while they’re the only people at Silver Lake, and they generously welcome the Boasts, the traveling ministers, and other guests there. At the novel’s end, Pa plays a song celebrating home: “Home! Home! Sweet, sweet home, / Be it ever so humble / There is no place like home” (292). The simple song perfectly encapsulates the Ingalls’ gratitude for one another and their new home, making the happy ending even sweeter. The motif of music repeats like a chorus throughout the novel, developing the theme of family and adding emphasis to important moments.
Jack
Laura’s bulldog, Jack, symbolizes her childhood. Jack holds a prominent place in her early memories and serves as both a friend and protector to the protagonist: “She had always been safe from wolves [...] because Jack was there. [...] How happy they had been playing along Plum Creek” (12). However, Laura’s childhood is drawing to a close, as are the loyal dog’s days. Wilder provides precise descriptions to capture Jack’s age, including “his stiff legs” (9), grayed fur, and weary expression. Although the Little House series is largely autobiographical, the author utilizes some creative license to arrange events. For instance, Wilder’s retelling of her childhood makes it so that Laura buries her bulldog on the very same morning that Pa heads west to Dakota Territory. This timing emphasizes Laura’s loneliness and helps to explain her growth: “Laura was not very big, but she was almost thirteen years old, and no one was there to depend on. Pa and Jack had gone” (13). After losing her beloved dog, Laura resolutely takes on more responsibilities in assisting her parents and caring for her siblings. Although he only appears in one chapter, Jack influences the protagonist’s character development throughout the novel. In Laura’s mind, Jack’s death represents the end of her childhood.
The China Shepherdess
The china shepherdess represents home to the Ingalls. The delicate figurine is one of their loveliest and most prized possessions:
Her little china shoes, her tight china bodice and her golden hair were as bright as they had been so long ago in the Big Woods. Her china skirts were as wide and white; her cheeks as pink and her blue eyes as sweet as ever (283).
In addition to aesthetic value, the object holds sentimental importance, particularly to Ma. The first mention of the shepherdess appears in Chapter 8 when Pa notes its absence from the shanty near the Silver Lake railroad camp. Ma decides to leave the shepherdess safely packed away until the family has a proper home again: “We aren’t living here, we’re only staying till you get our homestead” (74). As a result, the figurine accompanies the Ingalls in all of their journeys throughout the novel but doesn’t appear until Chapter 30. Ma places the shepherdess in its place of honor on the shelf after the family moves into their new homestead and are reunited after Grace’s brief but terrifying disappearance. The timing of these events reinforces the china shepherdess’s importance as a symbol, and the shepherdess, in turn, emphasizes that the Ingalls have at last found a permanent home in their claim by Silver Lake after years and years of moving.
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By Laura Ingalls Wilder
