Without Merit

Merit’s trophy collection reflects her sarcastic and eccentric personality while symbolizing the many complex and troubling memories onto which she holds. While the presentation of a trophy usually recognizes an achievement, Merit subverts the meaning behind the trophies to make light of the troubling situations in her life. For example, immediately after Merit attempts to die by suicide, she thinks, “I’m going to need a really big trophy after tonight. Maybe I can find an unwanted Academy Award statuette on eBay” (217). The trophies are a comfort and a distraction to Merit as she likes their gaudy and showy look; however, they remind her of how often other people feel celebrated while she feels ignored.

The trophy collection represents how Merit struggles to let go of the past. She holds onto the lies and secrets of her family members and the rejection from her peers at school, causing her to feel isolated in all her communities. The trophies that Merit collects were meaningless to their original owners, symbolizing that Merit wants things that other people take for granted. She wants her family to celebrate and acknowledge her but feels undervalued.

Dollar Voss is a physical representation of the Voss family, and it contains several symbolic elements. The first is the house’s layout. It splits into four different living quarters, and, for the most part, the family members stick to their assigned quarters. The name is a play on this, as four quarters make a dollar. In this way, the house represents both the parts and the whole of the family.

Dollar Voss retains the Christian symbols that Pastor Brian erected before the sale of the church. An eight-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ hangs in the living room, representing the novel’s themes of forgiveness, judgement, and truths that cannot be hidden. Merit recalls, “It appeared, after days of failed attempts to remove Him from the living room wall, that Jesus Christ’s cross was an actual part of the structure of the building and could not be removed” (27). The idea that the cross is a structural element of the building suggests that it symbolizes the elephant in the room that must be addressed.

Another symbolic aspect of Dollar Voss is its white picket fence, which Merit despises. White picket fences symbolize traditional, suburban, middle-class American families. Merit realizes, “So many people dream of living in a house with a white picket fence. Little do they know, there’s no such thing as a perfect family, no matter how white the picket fence is” (245)—just before she and Sagan paint the fence purple. The white picket fence at Dollar Voss symbolizes the family’s attempt to appear like a traditional nuclear family. The older Voss children are not allowed to have friends over to hide the family’s unusual living situation. Vicky lies to her friends on video chats, acting like she doesn’t permanently live in Dollar Voss’s basement.

At the end of the novel, Utah, Vicky, and Sagan move into the Vosses’ old house, showing that Dollar Voss no longer needs to contain the family’s secrets.

Merit embracing of her family members is a motif representing the strength of her emotional bonds. While Sagan comforts Merit immediately after her suicide attempt, Merit realizes, “His whole body is hugging mine and I can’t even remember the last time someone in this house hugged me” (219). Sagan is the only character who touches Merit throughout most of the narrative, and Merit admits his physical contact makes her feel “safe” and “alive” (219). At the same time, Sagan’s touch reminds Merit of the absence of physical contact she experiences, leaving her with a feeling of emptiness.

In the novel’s resolution, Merit realizes she is partially responsible for her family’s lack of physical contact. Merit approaches Barnaby, who then “pulls me in for a hug. The first hug he’s probably felt like I would allow him to give me in a very long time” (328). Merit’s standoffish personality leaves her family members feeling as though Merit would reject their embrace. Merit hugs each of her family members after they reconcile, demonstrating their restored bond.