56 pages • 1 hour read
Gordon KormanWhatshisface
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A 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
The GX-4000 Symbolizes Connection
Content Warning: This source text depicts bullying and insensitive remarks about mental health.
The GX-4000 symbolizes connection. The GX-4000 is a smartphone—one that is more expensive and supposedly superior to iPhones and Androids—and by definition it connect people to each other and to the external world.
The irony is that Cooper’s smartphone doesn’t connect him to people in 2018. He’s not texting his fellow students or going on social media platforms. When he lies to his sister and tells her he’s talking to friends, his sister quips, “The bill just came in. You made, like, three calls the whole month” (102). Moreover, Cooper only receives this phone because his parents feel terrible for disconnecting him from his previous community: they use it to bribe him into moving to Stratford.
In fact, the phone can symbolize connection only because it ties him to Roddy. Through the GX-4000, Cooper meets a life-changing friend. Together, they alter the understanding of literary history and find belonging. Contemporary discourse often focuses on how smartphones create toxic interactions and harmful behaviors, but Cooper’s smartphone produces positive interactions and develops his capacity for positive, healthy, mutual friendships.
Before Roddy and the GX-4000 arrived in his life, Cooper felt invisible. He didn’t have friends, and people didn’t even bother to learn his name. Indeed, when Marchese calls Cooper by his given moniker, he is “so used to being Whatshisface that he almost doesn’t answer to his own name” (24). But when Roddy enters his life by way of the GX-4000, Cooper changes for the better. Instead of compromising his integrity, the smartphone is a tool that supports his sense of self. Via the phone, Roddy pushes him to confront Brock and share his feelings with Jolie. The GX-4000 therefore linking Cooper to a meaningful identity.
William Shakespeare Symbolizes Idolization
Merriam-Webster defines “idolize” as “to worship as a god” or “to love or admire to excess” (“Idolize.” Merriam-Webster). The word well describes Wolfson’s relationship with William Shakespeare, with Wolfson turning the famous playwright into his idol. Not only does he build a private museum for Shakespeare, but he also constructs a smaller version of The Globe theater and forces Three Rivers to change its name to Stratford. Shakespeare consumes Wolfson, and he compels the people of Three Rivers-cum-Stratford to participate in his infatuation by paying for a performance of a Shakespeare play every year. Wolfson tells the students, “[T]he greatest gift I have is my love of the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, the most superlative playwright and poet this world has ever produced” (135). His hyperbolic diction underscores his idolization of Shakespeare, as do the items he keeps in the secret gallery, which include one of Shakespeare’s teeth. On the whole, his idolization is not a force for good. It pushes Wolfson to hide the truth about Shakespeare: he can’t bring himself to compromise the reputation of his idol, even though doing so would correct the historical record and revolutionize our understanding of English literature.
By turning Shakespeare into a symbol of idolization, Korman crafts a parable on the dangers of becoming invested in an artist instead of the message of their art. It’s not that people can’t look up to others or admire them. They can, but they should understand that they’re humans, not gods, and humans are flawed, imperfect creatures. They can make mistakes or, in the case of Korman’s Shakespeare, act sinisterly and plagiarize a play. Idolization has consequences— and if Wolfson had a pragmatic appreciation of Shakespeare, maybe Roddy wouldn’t have had to come back as a ghost to search for belonging.
The Motif of Right and Wrong
The motif of right and wrong supports the theme of The Search for Belonging. Cooper and Roddy struggle to find their place due to wrongs. Cooper battles a bully in Brock, as well as in the insensitivity of peers who cannot be bothered even to learn his name. Roddy faces a historical lie: People think William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, but Shakespeare stole the story from his play, Barnabas and Ursula. To belong, Cooper and Roddy must overcome these wrongs. Thus, Cooper stands up to Brock, and he helps Roddy to reveal his truth about Romeo and Juliet.
Yet Korman complicates binary moralizing by having Roddy attack Brock, which creates the opportunity for Cooper play Romeo. Cooper thinks it’s wrong. He tells Roddy that, ‘people who do that now are called criminals, and they get locked up’ (167). Yet Roddy thinks he didn’t commit a wrong. He helped out his friend and punished a bully without any redeemable traits. He didn’t kill Brock or permanently disfigure him. He’ll be fine in the long run––he just won’t be able to play Romeo on Saturday. Cooper undercuts his stance on the assault when he reconciles with Roddy and reaps the benefits. If what Roddy did was glaringly wrong, Cooper could have turned down the role or never spoken to Roddy again, but he didn’t. Thus, wrong and right isn’t straightforward.
The motif of right and wrong also supports the theme of Keeping Secrets. Wolfson keeps secrets to preserve a lie (a wrong), while Cooper and Roody keep secrets to pursue the truth (a right). By extension, the motif also supports the theme of Linking the Past and Present. There are good parts and bad parts from both periods. People from any century can form meaningful bonds. Conversely, as Shakespeare, Brock, Wolfson, and even Roddy demonstrate, they can do bad things.
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