Bones & All

Content Warning: This section contains graphic depictions of cannibalism and violence.

For most of the novel, Maren hates herself. She defines herself solely through her behavior—“the bad thing”—rather than acknowledging any good qualities in herself. She overcomes several hurdles throughout the narrative that finally set her on a path to accepting her true self and her ability to grow in spite of her urges.

Maren’s attempts to simply be different don’t work: “It was never a matter of trying hard enough to be good” (41). For a while, her mother tries to remedy her negative self-image: “My mother was kind to me. She never said things like what you did or what you are” (3). However, after Janelle abandons her, Maren finds it even harder to accept herself. At that time, she is unable to see that Janelle could accept her, just not the consequences of her behavior.

Throughout much of the novel, Maren can only tell the worst story about herself that she can think of—the story in which she is an irredeemable monster. Sully reinforces this idea when he tells her, “That’s how stories start. We tell ‘em about ourselves like they ain’t true, ‘cause that’s the only way anybody’s gonna believe us” (82). Sully accepts himself, and even celebrates his cannibalistic tendencies, but presents identity as immutable and intrinsic. He suggests that eaters like he and Maren have no choice but to pretend to be like everyone else to survive.

How one’s peers react to a person also influences identity and self-perception. Having moved her entire life, Maren has no stable group of peers, and her classmates shun her, leading to an even more unstable sense of self. When she lets herself spend time alone with a boy, it is because they want something from her and because she is going to eat them. Her most intimate moments of human contact are murders that she doesn’t want to commit.

Maren’s memories are another significant hurdle to self-acceptance because her memories are mostly negative or even torturous. When she learns about cicadas, she envies them, thinking, “I wanted to pull my skin off and leave it in the bushes and nobody would recognize me […] I would be a completely different person and I wouldn’t remember a thing” (17). She has only to look at her journal, which people use to chronicle their lives and shape their identities with words, to see a record of death, mayhem, and loss.

Maren can’t become another person, and memories cannot be removed like an exoskeleton. Eventually, Maren begins to accept Mrs. Harmon’s philosophy about “the ugly things in life” (241) being painful, but also essential to knowledge and understanding. She realizes that she has an urge that she did not create, but that she has to live with, and she can grow and progress in spite of it. She is also able to accept that the pain her mother felt is just as real as the pain her abandonment caused.

Lee plays a role in Maren’s eventual self-acceptance as well. While he has more peace with himself and his identity than Maren, he doesn’t gleefully embrace his identity like Sully. Instead, he helps Maren realize the extent to which she can exercise self-control, but also that acceptance from others isn’t a prerequisite for accepting herself.