Tornado

Food functions as a motif throughout the novel. In the first chapter, the presence of food in the storm cellar indicates the intersection between dramatic events like tornados and everyday life. The detail that “My grandmother sat on a pickle barrel and my mother on an orange crate” (3) demonstrates the dual purposes of the cellar. On most days, the family might visit it to collect pickles or oranges, but on this occasion, it protects them from the storm. Similarly, food is important to the opening of Pete’s story about the day of Tornado’s arrival. Pete’s family is eating beans and biscuits when the tornado hits, and after the roof is ripped off, Pete observes that “the tornado had torn the roof off the kitchen and left the food on the table and us in our seats” (7). Like in the storm cellar, this passage suggests that normal events like eating breakfast and drastic, destructive events like natural disasters can happen simultaneously. Food thus relates to the unexpected but inevitable nature of dramatic events like tornados.

Food is also associated with routines and the way animals can become involved in them. On the day of his arrival, a terrified Tornado won’t leave the doghouse until he hears Pete’s mother call “supper.” Knowing the word and having become hungry, Tornado leaves the doghouse. Similarly, the cat, Five-Thirty, comes to Pete’s family because it arrives at suppertime every day to be fed. The involvement of animals in daily eating routines suggests how enmeshed pets can become in daily life. This motif, therefore, connects to the novel’s Power of Human-Animal Bonds theme.

Holes or underground spaces function as a symbol of safety and retreat. The storm cellar into which the narrator’s family retreats is a literal example of a hole in the ground designed for cool storage as well as safety in storms. The narrator thinks about the detail that “the storm cellar was dim and cool. It smelled of potatoes and pickles. My mother kept sacks of root vegetables here along with boxes of eggs and jars of tomatoes” (3). This passage characterizes the cellar as a peaceful, calm space since it is dim and cool. That it smells like food associates it with the homey, daily life detail of food, particularly because the narrator thinks of their mother storing food in it. It is a comforting space in general, but especially because it functions as the family’s protection from the storm. Tornado’s lying down hole functions similarly as a space of retreat. Tornado lies in it to cool off on hot days and be alone. When Five-Thirty uses the lying down hole, Tornado is very upset—“he took the loss of his lying down hole hard” (34)—because the cat’s intrusion stops the hole from continuing to work as Tornado’s special space.