76 pages • 2 hours read
Ann Clare LeZotteShow Me a Sign
Ann Clare LeZotteFiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 2, Chapters 20-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapters 20-24 Summary
Andrew has kidnapped Mary and taken her aboard his schooner. When she awakens from her drugged state, she finds her hands are tied so that she can’t sign: “I have never felt so helpless. […] He took my voice when he tied my hands” (151). Mary recalls the letter she found in Andrew’s belongings, suggesting that he bring back a person who is deaf. She concludes that he intends to perform experiments on her.
For the next 10 days, Mary is locked in the ship’s cabin. Andrew neglects her for the most part. On Day 11, he presents her with a list of rules acknowledging that she has gone with him voluntarily. If she resists, he promises that she will never see her family again. Mary has no choice but to agree to his terms. She says, “What hurts worse is that he doesn’t see me as someone created in the Almighty’s image. I am a specimen, not a person.” (156).
When she arrives in Boston, Mary is astonished by the sights and sounds and how different the people are. Nobody is signing. She is upset at the sight of beggars in the street. Although many of the beggars have physical disabilities, Mary wonders how many might simply be deaf like her. Andrew drags her along to an inn in a shabby section of the city. She is immediately assigned to the innkeeper as a servant. When Mary isn’t quick to perform her tasks, the woman hits her.
For the next three weeks, Mary spends her days doing chores. At night, she is locked in a bedroom in the basement. She hasn’t been allowed to wash or clean her clothing, so she quickly begins to look and smell like a feral beggar. Mary has dubbed the innkeeper Mrs. Muffins. A kindly student also stays at the inn, and Mary calls him Mr. Squints because of his eyeglasses.
Andrew mocks Mary’s deafness behind her back to Mr. Squints, who seems uncomfortable witnessing this abuse. Later that night, Mary thinks, “Reverend Lee wouldn’t view all deaf people as destitute and presume to speak for us. He wouldn’t see muteness as the absence of oral speech but rather the condition of those who feel lost and unheard” (172).
The next day, Mrs. Muffins takes Mary with her to the Faneuil Hall market. Mary begins to hope that some of the sailors who made port in Boston might be looking for a girl who is deaf, missing from Martha’s Vineyard. While at a fishmonger’s stand, Mary begins using sign language. Mrs. Muffins is embarrassed and drags her back home.
Mary feels that someone is following them as they return to the inn. Once back inside, Mary schemes to steal a piece of paper from Mrs. Muffins’s ledger to write a note asking for help. Unfortunately, she is caught and locked in the basement. Mary thinks, “I have learned too much too fast about how the world treats anyone who is different. I have to learn their rules, if I am going to beat them” (180). The next day, a strange gentleman appears at the inn. Before Mary can protest, he carries her away with him in his carriage.
Part 2, Chapters 25-28 Summary
Mary travels in the carriage with Andrew and the gentleman she calls Professor Hawk. They arrive at a residence in Beacon Hill that is much grander than any building on her island. When she is left alone in an examining room, Mary finds a document on the wall stating that the gentleman is named Dr. Henry Minot. Then, a girl enters the room. Because of her red hair, Mary dubs her Miss Top and assumes she is the gentleman’s maid. Miss Top helps her undress for the doctor and Andrew to examine her.
Mary is humiliated to be treated like a specimen, but afterward she is taken upstairs to have a bath and sleep in a fine bedroom. When she is finally left alone, she peers out the windows: “Behind the flowery drapes are two floor-to-ceiling windows […] covered by iron bars. […] Who else has been held here, and for how long?” (188).
The next morning, Miss Top brings Mary a good breakfast and a fine new gown. Mary discovers toys and a cameo with the likeness of a girl in one of the dresser drawers. The girl resembles Mary at a slightly younger age, and her initials are A. M.; Mary wonders what became of her.
Andrew comes in to drag Mary back downstairs, where Dr. Minot continues to examine her:
He signals for me to stand and twirls two fingers on his right hand for me to turn around. He feels my back from my neck to my rear. What notions they have about our deafness! I face him and point to my ears to indicate that is my one peculiarity (195).
Later that evening, Mary begins using signs to communicate with Miss Top. Thus far, nobody will allow her access to writing materials. As she gets ready for bed, Mary is sure she sees a man outside on the street gazing up at her window.
The following morning, when Miss Top brings the breakfast tray, she remains to try to learn some basic signs from Mary. The two begin to communicate in a limited way, but Mary can’t make the maid understand that she was abducted by Andrew. Later that morning, she spies Andrew leaving the house in what appears to be a dejected mood. Discovering that her door is unlocked, Mary tiptoes downstairs. The front door is locked, so Mary enters Minot’s office instead.
There, she finds Andrew’s papers, including her brother’s map. She takes back the map and scans a journal entry written by Minot. In it, he says that he gave Mary his deceased daughter Amy’s clothing. This is the meaning of the A. M. initials. Minot then talks about Andrew’s claim that Mary accompanied him willingly. Minot seems perplexed that Mary is intelligent, while Andrew says she is not. He also has serious doubts about many of Andrew’s other assertions regarding the limited intelligence of the inhabitants of Martha’s Vineyard who are deaf. Mary is mortified by Andrew’s lies. At that moment, Minot discovers her reading his journal, and she flees upstairs.
It is now Christmas Eve, and Mary loses all hope that she will be rescued: “I survived the journey to Boston in my own filth. […] I’ve been stripped bare and examined. But now I feel broken” (205). Lost in thought, Mary doesn’t realize that Miss Top has entered her room and left an orange on her pillow as a gift.
By the dawn of Christmas Day, Mary once again sees Andrew leaving the house. She manages to obtain her room key from the other side of the door lock and sneaks downstairs. Minot’s office is unlocked, and she goes inside. Riffling through more of his notes, she learns that Miss Top’s real name is Nora. Minot writes that he is confused by Andrew’s claims in light of Mary’s obvious intelligence. Mary tears a page from his journal and writes him a long letter exposing Andre’s lies. She says the man she glimpsed outside the house might be trying to rescue her and asks for the gentleman’s help in restoring her to her family. Minot appears just as she finishes. Not sure of his intentions, she runs out of the room. Trapped and terrified, she falls into a faint.
Part 2, Chapters 20-28 Analysis
This segment begins Part 2 of the novel and is meant to show the radical differences between the worlds of Chilmark and Boston. Because Mary can now compare her hometown to the big city, these chapters key on the theme of how the two places differ. Initially, Mary is impressed by the bustle of commerce and the display of fine clothing. However, she is almost immediately disturbed by the sight of beggars with physical disabilities, wondering if any of them are deaf.
When she arrives at the inn run by Mrs. Muffins in a rundown neighborhood, she is further unnerved by the poor treatment of people who are deaf. The innkeeper communicates by pointing at things and beating her when she fails to understand. Mary is mistreated and locked in a basement room when she isn’t performing endless chores. She isn’t allowed to wash or change her clothing, so her appearance rapidly deteriorates. Soon, she believes she resembles the beast that Andrew has always assumed she was. Andrew’s contempt for people who are deaf is further demonstrated when he mocks Mary behind her back to another guest at the inn.
Fortunately, this level of abuse is curtailed when Mary is taken to Minot’s house. The doctor has an open mind and is skeptical of Andrew’s assertions about Mary’s limitations. Still, some prejudices persist because Mary is denied writing materials when she asks for them. Minot and Nora automatically believe she cannot read or write. The doors to communication are only opened when Mary accesses pen and paper and can communicate with Minot using a medium that he understands. Of course, Minot is the exception in Boston. The general public shares Andrew’s disdain for people who are deaf, and it will be decades before that perception changes.
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