57 pages • 1 hour read
Beggars in Spain
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Symbols & Motifs
Beggars
By a significant margin, the dominant symbol in Beggars in Spain are the “beggars” which Tony invokes when warning Leisha of the class warfare he predicts will erupt between Sleepers and Sleepless. Throughout the book, the meaning of the term “beggars” and its symbolic connotations shift dramatically. In most of Book 1, the term uses literal beggars on the street as a metaphor for those who resent the economic achievements of the Sleepless. By the end of Book 2, Leisha thinks of beggars not so much in economic terms but in emotional ones, as she comes to realize the extent to which she relies on Alice for emotional support despite giving little back in return. The most dramatic recalibration of the term comes when Miri christens her rebel group of Supersleepless as “the Beggars.” It serves as a reclamation of the word that positions the Supers as an out-group, representing values contrary to Jennifer and the Sanctuary council. Furthermore, the Supers recognize that even they, with all their productivity and earning potential, are sometimes beggars based on the situation. For example, when Miri asks Leisha if she will provide the Supers a safe haven in the wake of the bioweapons showdown between Sanctuary and the United States, she says, “We come to you as beggars. Nothing to offer, nothing to trade. Just need” (389).
Throughout these shifts, the symbol serves to refine and re-contextualize the central moral and philosophical question of the book: What the strong owe the weak, and if concessions are made out of self-interest or to preserve the social order or to show compassion. Using these questions, the book provokes a number of important dialogues about capitalism, socialism, family, and community.
Abraham Lincoln
Before each of the four Books, Kress includes a quote from Abraham Lincoln that highlights important themes and characterizations found in the novel. The Book 1 quote—“With energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories” (2)—is little more than a pun around the word “sleepless.” The Book 2 quote, however, foreshadows important character shifts for Leisha, reading, “A nation may be said to consist of its territories, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability” (98). On first surface, the quote suggests a link between Lincoln's attempts to unite the North and South and Leisha's attempts to unite Sleeper and Sleepless, but there is also a darker undercurrent at work here, for by the end of Book 2, Leisha will have almost entirely lost her faith in both people and the law.
The quote at the beginning of Book 3 speaks equally to Leisha's character, reading, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present” (216). Indeed, by this point in the book, Leisha has largely abandoned her own “dogmas of the quiet past” (216)—Yagaiism and Enlightenment values—finding them insufficient to explain how she feels about the world. Finally, the meaning of the Book 4 quote is a bit of an outlier as it seems to relate less to Leisha and more to Jennifer and her secession: “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent” (316). Yet this quote is references slavery, not the right of the South to rebel against perceived tyranny. It is one of many examples—along with Hawke's invocation of Lincoln when defending We-Sleep—in which the words of Lincoln are appropriated to justify political acts that have little to do with his legacy.
Flowers
When Leisha is a child, Roger uses flowers—in particular, exotic ones—as a symbol to teach his daughter about individuality. He says, “The flower is the tree's individuality—that means just it, and nothing else—made manifest. Nothing else matters” (22). While Roger views exotic flowers as exemplars of individuality, ordinary people are individuals too, a point underscored by Alice's insistence in Book 2 on shipping a bouquet of “ordinary, hardy garden blooms” (102) to Leisha's apartment every day. Jordan asks, “Doesn't Aunt Leisha prefer those indoor exotics?” (102), but the point, Alice believes, is to remind Leisha that ordinary individuality matters as much as extraordinary individuality. In fact, it is only when Leisha crumbles in Alice's arms that she finally realizing how much she relies on her for emotional support, that Alice says, “Now I can stop sending all those damn flowers” (201).
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