Small Great Things
Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things (2016) explores themes of race, privilege, and justice through the story of Ruth Jefferson, an African American labor and delivery nurse accused of causing the death of a white supremacist couple’s newborn. The novel alternates perspectives between Ruth, the infant’s father Turk Bauer, and Ruth’s public defender Kennedy McQuarrie, revealing systemic racism and personal biases. Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote about doing “small things in a great way,” the narrative examines moral dilemmas and societal structures. The book has been praised for its thought-provoking examination of contemporary racial tensions and is being adapted into a film.
Stage One: Active Labor — Turk 2
byPicoult, Jodi
The chapter opens with Turk standing in the nursery meant for his deceased son, consumed by rage and grief. He describes an overwhelming urge to destroy the room, symbolizing his pain. His father-in-law, Francis Mitchum, interrupts this moment, helping him dismantle the nursery by removing curtains and repainting the walls. Turk disassembles the crib he once carefully built, reflecting on how his son’s death had no reason, leaving him grappling with helplessness and anger. The physical act of destruction becomes a futile attempt to externalize his emotional turmoil.
Turk’s wife, Brit, is heavily sedated after their loss, having shifted from uncontrollable crying to a numb silence at the hospital. While she sleeps, Turk remains awake, seeking solace in physical destruction rather than rest. The collapse of the crib onto his chest provides a tangible pain he prefers over his emotional suffering. Francis suggests donating the crib to the Aryan Women’s League, a group with ties to their white supremacist ideology, but Turk struggles with the idea of another child using his son’s belongings.
The narrative shifts to explore Francis’s background as a former leader in the White Power Movement, now disguised as a Tea Party supporter. Turk reflects on how Francis adapted extremist ideologies to modern times, advocating for blending into society while maintaining racist beliefs. The chapter critiques the movement’s evolution, drawing parallels between past and present rhetoric. Turk’s internal conflict surfaces as he imagines another child using the crib, highlighting his unresolved grief and the dissonance between his personal pain and his ideological commitments.
In a final act of defiance, Turk shaves his head, revealing a hidden swastika tattoo—a symbol of his white supremacist identity. This moment underscores his return to extremist roots as a coping mechanism for his loss. The chapter ends with Turk visually reclaiming his ideology, suggesting that grief has reinforced his commitment to the movement. The nursery’s destruction and his physical transformation mirror his emotional unraveling, leaving readers with a stark portrayal of how trauma can entrench harmful beliefs.
FAQs
1. How does Turk’s physical transformation (shaving his head) symbolize his emotional state and ideological identity after his son’s death?
Answer:
Turk’s act of shaving his head to reveal a swastika tattoo serves as both a personal and ideological statement. Emotionally, it represents his raw grief and anger over his son’s death, stripping away any pretense of normalcy. The revealed swastika—with his and Brit’s initials woven into it—symbolizes a return to his white supremacist roots as a source of identity and strength during tragedy. This mirrors Francis Mitchum’s philosophy of blending into society while maintaining extremist beliefs. The passage emphasizes how Turk’s physical transformation externalizes his internal pain and reinforces his commitment to the movement (“a picture is revealed…a thick black swastika”).2. Analyze the significance of the nursery dismantling scene. How does it reflect Turk’s coping mechanisms and worldview?
Answer:
The dismantling of the nursery showcases Turk’s destructive grief and his need to “pound out the pain” through physical action. His violent dismantling of the crib (“kick at it with my boot”) contrasts with his earlier careful assembly, highlighting his shattered expectations of fatherhood. Francis’s pragmatic approach—repurposing items for the Aryan Women’s League—reveals how Turk’s personal tragedy is framed within their extremist community. Turk’s refusal to reuse the crib (“like making our new child sleep with a ghost”) underscores his superstition and trauma, while Francis’s suggestion reinforces their ideology’s emphasis on collective survival over individual mourning.3. How does the chapter characterize Francis Mitchum’s role in the white supremacist movement, and what does it reveal about modern extremism?
Answer:
Francis represents the evolution of white supremacy from overt violence to covert infiltration. The chapter details his past leadership in the White Alliance Army but emphasizes his strategic shift to “small cells of friends” blending into society. His Tea Party affiliation and drywall business illustrate how modern extremists adopt mainstream disguises (“Old skinheads…now join the Tea Party”). His commentary on coded language (e.g., “welfare” replacing racial slurs) critiques how ideologies persist through rebranding. Francis’s influence on Turk—encouraging military service and online radicalization—highlights how extremism adapts to governmental crackdowns by prioritizing anonymity and systemic infiltration.4. What contrasting portrayals of grief does the chapter present through Turk and Brit, and how do their reactions deepen their characterizations?
Answer:
Brit’s grief is silent and internalized (“stared, blank, at the wall”), requiring sedation, which reflects her emotional collapse and detachment. In contrast, Turk externalizes his pain through physical aggression (wanting to “punch holes in the plaster”) and ideological reaffirmation. Their responses align with gendered stereotypes—Brit’s passivity versus Turk’s action—but also reveal their coping mechanisms: Brit withdraws, while Turk seeks control through destruction and racial identity. The memory of Brit painting the nursery balloons juxtaposed with her catatonic state underscores how their shared loss fractures their earlier happiness, foreshadowing divergent paths in processing trauma.5. How does the chapter use symbolism in its descriptions of the nursery’s painted walls and the crib’s dismantling?
Answer:
The pale yellow paint “peeking through” the white primer symbolizes unresolved grief and memory—the past haunting the present “like something trapped under ice.” The crib’s collapse mirrors Turk’s shattered expectations of fatherhood, with the mattress’s weight on his chest reflecting his suffocating loss. The mirror with balloon frames, once a symbol of joy (“holding her in my arms…everything was perfect”), becomes a cruel reminder of absence. These images collectively illustrate how physical spaces retain emotional weight, and how destruction becomes Turk’s language for processing irreversible change.
Quotes
1. “I left Brit sleeping off a sedative, which was an improvement over the way she was this morning at the hospital. I’d thought nothing could be worse than the crying that wouldn’t stop, the sound of her breaking into pieces. But then, at about 4:00 A.M., all of that stopped. Brit didn’t make a sound. She just stared, blank, at the wall.”
This quote powerfully captures the devastating grief of losing a child, showing how Brit’s transition from uncontrollable crying to catatonic silence represents an even deeper level of trauma. It illustrates the chapter’s exploration of how grief manifests differently in each parent.
2. “Me, I hadn’t slept, not a wink. But I knew it wasn’t sleep that was going to make me feel better. That was going to take some wilding, a moment of destruction. I needed to pound out the pain inside me, give it a home someplace else.”
This reveals Turk’s contrasting coping mechanism - externalizing his pain through physical destruction rather than internalizing it like Brit. The quote highlights the chapter’s theme of how trauma demands expression, even if through radically different means.
3. “Old skinheads don’t die. They used to join the KKK, but now they join the Tea Party. Don’t believe me? Go listen to an old Klan speaker and compare it to a speech by a Tea Party Patriot. Instead of saying Jew, they now say Federal government. Instead of saying Fags, they say Social ilk of our country. Instead of saying Nigger, they say Welfare.”
This biting political commentary shows how racist ideologies evolve to maintain relevance while staying fundamentally unchanged. It provides crucial context for understanding Turk’s worldview and the generational transmission of extremist beliefs.
4. “With my help, he created and ran a website and message board. We aren’t crews anymore, he’d tell me over and over. We are pockets of discontent within the system. And as it turned out, it was even more terrifying to people to know we walked and lived among them unseen.”
This quote reveals the strategic evolution of white supremacist movements into decentralized, hidden networks. It demonstrates how modern extremism thrives on anonymity and infiltration of mainstream society, making it more insidious than overt hate groups.