86 pages • 2 hours read
Carl HiaasenScat
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
The Broken Arm
When Nick’s father returns from the Iraq War having lost his right arm to an insurgent attack, Nick immediately immobilizes his own right arm and learns to be a “lefty” in solidarity. This act of empathetic self-sacrifice is an indication of Nick’s caring and sympathetic nature. But it is also symbolic of the way the wounds and scars of war are borne not only by soldiers, but by their families. Every time Nick struggles to eat, write, or play sports with his right arm in a sling, it serves as a tacit reminder of the extra challenges that children of service members can face.
The Anvil Scar
The large, anvil-shaped scar on Mrs. Starch’s chin is her most frequently mentioned feature. Early in the novel, it is grotesque and unsettling, like an oversized wart on the face of a stereotypical witch; its “anvil” shape, likewise, corresponds to her hard and uncaring nature. Toward the end of the book, though, after Mrs. Starch’s character has been more fully and sympathetically developed, Mrs. Starch reveals the scar is from an injury she received trying to save an osprey chick. The change in perception of the scar, then, recapitulates in miniature the change in the perception of her character; the anvil shape comes to represent not hard-hearted malignity but a person scarred by the sacrifices she has made for the sake of helpless animals.
The Panther Cub
A great deal of the novel’s plot revolves around the baby panther, but “Squirt” is more than a plot device—he is the novel’s symbolic and emotional core, too. Hiaasen’s language in describing the baby panther is reverent, almost as if he is describing a magical creature. As a helpless, precarious, and vanishingly rare animal, the panther cub represents all the wildlife that humans have pushed to the brink of extinction by urban development and resource extraction. It takes vigilance and extraordinary bravery on the part of the novel’s characters to save his life—as it will require great efforts on all of our parts to protect the Everglades and other threatened ecosystems. But although the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against Squirt, the cub also represents hope and futurity, the ability for life to find a way in the most unlikely or hostile circumstances. The Florida panther is extremely endangered, but as long as there are still new panthers being born in the wild, hope is not yet lost for this species.
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