You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-18

Chapters 19-23

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Color

The motif of color is an important one, particularly since Feyi is an artist. When she meets people, she notices the colors of their clothing, accessories, and skin. Aside from her artistic eye, however, color is a gesture of self-expression and rebellion for Feyi. She notes that when she was young, she was told not to wear color in her hair or against her skin, something that she now enjoys doing. She intentionally chooses bright colors for her clothing and hair. The color of her braids reflects her character’s emotions and growth: They begin the novel pink, then turquoise, then grey, and then finally become a shining gold as Feyi reaches personal and romantic fulfillment. When Feyi sees a photo of Marisol, Alim’s wife, she is wearing a yellow dress. This foreshadows Feyi’s successful matching with Alim as Feyi’s dress on her first day in his house, as well as her braids, are the same hue.

An indication that Alim is Feyi’s love match comes from his personal use of color. Much like Feyi, he uses it to decorate his body in a rebellious way, using makeup to color his lips and cheeks and his white clothing to contrast against his dark skin. His toes, when he finally begins a relationship with Feyi, are painted a blood red, which connects to her artwork, where the predominant color is the red of the blood she uses as her medium.

That the color red is the color of passion in Feyi’s life is made obvious from the very first scene when Feyi and Milan have sex in a bathroom flooded with red light. The fact that the light is something that is insubstantial and can be switched on and off reflects the impermanence of their relationship, as opposed to the more lasting, corporeal blood of Feyi’s work and Alim’s nails. It is also the color of Feyi’s dress during her exhibition, a tribute to her work in blood and the passion she puts into her project. Red comes to symbolize Feyi’s passion and her pain, and the way her passion and pain are inextricable from each other.

Hunger

Florence and the Machine’s song “Hunger” gives the book its title. The song and the words foreshadow the motifs of the book as well as Alim’s profession as a chef. When an entity is living, it gets hungry, and Feyi’s returning hunger when she meets Alim is an indication of her recovery.

Feyi’s emptiness, on the other hand, first manifests at the very beginning with Milan. Feyi realizes that it is his hunger for her that stimulates her, that she herself is not hungry or ready to let anyone in. Nasir is similar in that his obvious hunger and lust are what first attracts her to him across the bar. Feyi recognizes that this is not what she needs and tries to turn him into a friend instead. Because he lacks an understanding of the depths of her sorrow, he is not able to feed her emotionally. As if to emphasize this motif, the meals they have together are either interrupted by Feyi’s tears or are light, like bowls of popcorn. Feyi’s lack of hunger toward the men in her life shows she is not recovering.

Alim, on the other hand, is the first man she looks at with the hunger she normally sees directed at her. It is overwhelming and disturbing to Feyi because it forces her to admit that she is coming to life again. That he does not return the look is frustrating to her, but when she realizes that the hunger itself is the point, that she is becoming alive again, she stops caring as much and feels like this return is a victory in itself. The irony, of course, is that he has been feeling the hunger toward her she was hoping for, a feeling that he shows in his kitchen when he literally feeds her with his fingers. Alim’s similar grief and his tenderness can emotionally stimulate and feed Feyi, and his profession as a chef moves from being a job to becoming a symbol for the food of life he can give back to his beloved.

Real-Life Artists

Because one of the themes of the novel is The Power of Art and Music, motifs and symbolism involving artists from many different genres appear constantly throughout the novel. You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty includes real-life people who inspire Feyi, including a photojournalist referenced by Pooja who also happens to be the author’s sister. By having actual, existing paintings by ruby onyinyechi amanze and masks by Allison Janae Hamilton on the walls of Alim’s house, as well as real-life working artists exhibiting next to Feyi in the national gallery, Akwaeke Emezi brings the story out of the world of fiction and into the reality of the reader. This tribute also serves to inspire readers to discover and share Feyi’s source of inspiration, making both the character and her art more alive.

Alongside the visual artists named and admired by Feyi, musicians appear just as frequently, and the characters admire their performances, techniques, and sound. Emezi uses real songs to set the mood for various scenes, such as the passionate moment inspired by Buika or the mellow happiness at a Moses Sumner concert. The title itself comes from the lyrics of the Florence and the Machine song, “Hunger,” which refers to Alim’s chosen art form and underlines the feelings Alim and Feyi have for each other.