Line #16 Literature/Swamplandia


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/swamplandia.png]]
2	''Swamplandia!'' is a novel released in 2011 written by Karen Russell. It is an AdaptationExpansion of sorts to a previous short story collected in the author's first short story collection, ''St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves''.
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4	In the novel, thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava's mother, the park's indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness.
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6	!!Swamplandia! provides examples of the following tropes:
7	* AdaptationExpansion: "Ava Wrestles the Alligator."
8	* AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists
9	* BraidsBeadsAndBuckskins: The Bigtree "tribe" wear this kind of getup (borrowed from their own gift shop) in their advertising material; in reality the family is entirely white, though all but Osceola are sufficiently tan to be somewhat plausible.
10	* BreakTheCutie: In short order, thirteen-year-old Ava loses her mother to cancer, watches her family drift apart, is left at home by herself after her brother and father leave and her big sister vanishes, [[spoiler:is raped by a grown man who offers to help her find her sister, loses her beloved pet alligator and ultimately loses the family theme park, which she began the book determined to save]].
11	* DeathByNewberyMedal: Potentially the fate of [[spoiler:the red Seth; Ava notes that even if she wasn't killed by the Bird Man her survival in the wild is unlikely given her bright coloration]].
12	* DitzyGenius: Kiwi upon his introduction to mainland culture.
13	* FireAndBrimstoneHell: The "World of Darkness" theme park has this as its shtick, referring to its customers as "lost souls" and offering overpriced treats such as Hellspawn Hoagies.
14	* FromBadToWorse:
15	--> ''...Mom was dead, so I thought the worst had already happened to us. I didn't realize that one tragedy can beget another, and another—bright-eyed disasters flooding out of a death hole like bats out of a cave.''
16	* HopeSpot: Ava encounters several, most notably [[spoiler: the appearance of the Bird Man.]]
17	* HomeschooledKids: Kiwi, Ava and Ossie were educated by their parents because of their isolation from the mainland.
18	* IJustWantToBeLoved: Ossie's loneliness, isolation and grief drive her to search for love in the spirit world.
19	* InnocentInaccurate: Some of the more obviously MagicalRealism elements of the story may be [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane more or less]] influenced by Ava's naïveté.
20	* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: The Bird Man.]]
21	* MagicalGuide: The Bird Man, [[spoiler: or so Ava believes.]]
22	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Played heavily with regard to two plotlines: Ossie's relationships with ghosts and the Bird Man's claim to know a route to the Underworld. [[spoiler:Although the latter is revealed as a deception on the part of the Bird Man, the former is left open to interpretation, although we are told that Ossie has been put on medication.]]
23	* MissingMom: Ava's mother dies during the opening of the novel.
24	* MultipleNarrativeModes: The book is initially carried by Ava's first-person narrative, but starting from the point where her brother Kiwi leaves home, her chapters alternate with a first-person limited account of his experiences on the mainland.
25	* TheOphelia: Osceola.
26	* PlanetOfSteves: All the Bigtrees' alligators are named Seth, and Ava frequently refers to their alligators as "Seths."
27	* PlotTriggeringDeath: The story occurs in the wake of Hilola Bigtree's death by cancer, which throws her family out of balance and puts the family theme park in peril.
28	* PosthumousCharacter: Two for the price of one: Hilola Bigtree and Ossie's ghostly fiancé Louis Thanksgiving. [[spoiler: The latter is complicated [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane by the possibility]] that he [[ImaginaryFriend may not exist]].]]
29	* PurpleProse: [[AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists Ava's narration]] is especially prone to this.
30	* RescuedFromTheUnderworld: Ava attempts this for Ossie.
31	* TheScully: Unlike Ava, Kiwi refuses to consider the possibility that their sister Ossie may really be interacting with ghosts and is sure that she's deeply delusional.
32	* SpeaksFluentAnimal: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] with regard to the Bird Man; Ava assumes that he can understand bird speech as a language, but he can only detect patterns.
33	* SouthernGothic: Though a somewhat unusual example in that it takes place in Florida and has apparent [[spoiler:and deceptive]] elements of MagicalRealism, it otherwise fits the conventions of the genre in its juxtaposition of a decaying family home with a sense of local history and tragedy which informs the action.
34	* SwampsAreEvil: Ava doesn't have to venture far outside her beloved Swamplandia! to find Hell itself, [[spoiler: [[RapeAsDrama and not in the way she expected]].]]
35	* WrongGenreSavvy: [[spoiler: Ava thinks this is MagicalRealism. It's SouthernGothic.]]

Context Literature / Swamplandia