Surviving Savannah

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-10

Chapters 11-24

Chapters 25-48

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Water

Water has important meaning for each of the protagonists in Surviving Savannah. It symbolizes life and death as well as birth and rebirth; it is mystical and mercurial. Everly’s life starts in water. Later, as she heals from her trauma, she is reborn in the ocean. Facing the choice of life or death, Everly embraces life and is renewed. For Lilly and Augusta, water is both the key to their survival, as something to drink, and the cause of great tragedy. Lilly can’t swim, but when it is time for her to go ashore, she learns to endure the waves. Augusta is stranded at sea, surrounded by water, but can’t drink anything. Her dehydration causes her to lose consciousness at times. The lack of drinking water leads to Thomas’s death, the ultimate tragedy for Augusta. However, when she is saved, the first thing she runs to is fresh water to sustain her life.

Water transports all three women to a new world. For Everly, diving lets her confront her trauma and grief and move forward to embrace life. For Augusta, being stranded in the ocean lets her drop social propriety and pursue the life she always wanted. Lilly can start over completely and live the life she wanted precisely because the Pulaski sinking gave her the opportunity to run away.

The Pocket Watch

The pocket watch is one of the main objects that connect the two timelines. It originally belonged to Lamar and is recovered by Maddox and his dive team. When the boiler explodes on the Pulaski, the force breaks the watch, freezing its hands, thus preserving the moment the disaster began. In the present, when Everly sees the pocket watch for the first time, she realizes the coincidence between Mora’s time of death and the Pulaski disaster. It symbolizes how time stopped when Mora died. Oliver is also greatly affected when he sees the watch’s frozen face. For Lilly, Augusta, and many of the other survivors of the Pulaski, it feels as though time should have stopped; the world should not still be turning. The pocket watch symbolizes how time stopped for many people and when a new life began for others.

The pocket watch is also the key that unlocks the last pieces of the Pulaski puzzle. With the family crest inscribed on it, Everly can understand the connection between Mora’s family and the Longstreets. She uses this connection to track down the collection of family papers that includes Augusta’s memoir and Lilly’s letters.

Savannah, Georgia

Savannah, Georgia, is often anthropomorphized by Everly and other people in the city, and it symbolizes the duality of life that Everly seeks to express in her museum exhibit. Everly often talks about how much the city has been through. Both Harriet and Josephine discuss how many tragedies the city has survived. As Everly shows Maddox around, she teaches him the city’s history and how it informs the world they live in. Even Everly’s childhood home is part of the history that is woven into the fabric of Savannah. Everly explains to Maddox that being able to love Savannah is complicated. Its history is filled with both atrocities and beautiful, rich stories. It was founded on the ideal of social progress. Savannah represents the complexity of history that Everly seeks to share with people. To celebrate the good things, people must also understand the bad parts of its legacy. She often relates these ideas to Mora, who is a descendant of Augusta and Charles (themselves positive and negative products of Savannah’s past).

For Lilly, Savannah is the place she was born and raised, where she grew up with Augusta, and where her mother was laid to rest. But Savannah also symbolizes repression. Both she and Priscilla have to escape it to live freely. For Augusta, Savannah is the home she longs for, with the comforts and familiarity that come with it, but it is also the place where conformity kept her from finding happiness. Savannah is marked by a complex history filled with tragedies and triumphs, just like the characters of the novel. By experiencing its complexities, the protagonists gain important insight into their own lives.