48 pages • 1 hour read
Beverly, Right Here
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Themes
Presence Versus Absence
The title reveals one of the story’s key themes. Beverly, Right Here indicates presence. Beverly is here: This is her story, and, literally, it’s her book in the Three Rancheros series.
What compels Beverly’s story is absence, and absence manifests in multiple ways. Death is an absence. After Buddy dies, Beverly skips town, telling Elmer, “I came here because I couldn’t stand it—that empty feeling” (170). Feelings constitute another absence. The material loss of her dog comes with intangible emotional loss. Something similar happens with Louisiana. When Raymie and Beverly discover she and her grandma suddenly disappeared, there’s the physical loss of her friend and the emotional, intangible, empty feeling.
There are multiple forms of absence, and there are multiple kinds of presence. While Beverly’s dog isn’t physically present, he remains present in her mind. She thinks about him constantly and dreams about him. Raymie (and, to an extent, Louisiana) also stays in her mind. People and animals can physically leave, but a person can make them present through memory.
Central to Beverly’s journey is accepting the back-and-forth relationship between presence and absence. Though she acts tough and willful, she’s thoughtful and sensitive. Before Iola (and Elmer), she forms meaningful relationships with Raymie, Louisiana, and Buddy. The heartfelt bonds make the two girls and the dog present, but presence is fleeting, and Beverly learns not to run away from the absence that follows presence—the loss that accompanies care. If Beverly didn’t care about Louisiana or Buddy, neither their presence nor their absence would mean anything. Meaningful presence causes pain; Iola informs Beverly that “[j]ust because you can’t stand to think about something don’t mean it ain’t happening, that it ain’t true. People wait on other people. People rely on other people” (124). Connection builds concern, and concern means worrying about a person—where they are and what they’re doing.
The French religious thinker Simone Weil encourages people to “endure the void.” Beverly’s trajectory links Weil’s philosophy to young people. When the story starts, Beverly flees from the “void”—the empty feeling. In the end, Beverly returns to the “void,” calling Raymie so she can go home. No longer does Beverly run from the empty feeling. Through Iola, she learns that relationships––a presence––needn’t last forever to have meaning. Her absence from Iola doesn’t taint the good times they had together. Iola highlights the mutability of connections when she announces, “I always knew that you was going to leave [...] It’s just that it was so much fun” (225).
The Need for Connection
Presence Versus Absence links to the need for connection, and the compulsion to create relationships makes people and animals present and, inevitably, absent. Though Beverly is tough and self-reliant, she needs connection. Before leaving for Tamaray Beach, she forms bonds with Raymie, Louisiana, and Buddy. In Tamaray Beach, she builds attachments to Iola, Elmer, and Nod, and she has relationships with, among others, Mr. Denby, Doris, Mrs. Deely, and Mr. Larksong.
Since connections can lead to painful loss, Beverly is wary of them. She doesn’t connect with people right away. With Iola, Beverly derisively compares her to “something that would spring out of a cuckoo clock” (21). While she waits for Iola to finish bingo, she thinks about driving away. The antagonistic attitude applies to Elmer. Their initial dialogue is contentious, and they refuse to label each other “friends.” After a trial period, Beverly becomes more forthright about her need for connection, and she embraces Iola and Elmer. She invites Elmer to dinner and dances with him, and she writes Iola’s name on more than 80 raffle tickets so she’ll have an outsized chance to win the turkey.
Similar to presence and absence, connections appear in multiple ways. There are multidimensional connections, like the kind between Beverly and Iola. There are also minor but meaningful connections that can happen every day. By helping Robbie build a sandcastle, Beverly makes a connection with him. As Beverly doesn’t dismiss Mrs. Deely and her religious cartoons, she makes a connection with her. Sometimes, people want to sincerely connect, but they go about it in jarring ways. However genuine Mrs. Deely’s intentions are, pushing disquieting cartoons on people, especially small children, may not have her intended effect.
A charitable reading of Freddie’s relationship with Jerome shows her need for connection. Freddie wants a boyfriend—or someone in her life—and she settles for the animalistic bully. Freddie resigns herself to him despite his behavior.
Connections apply to animals and birds. Beverly has a deep connection with her departed dog, Buddy, and Iola’s cat Nod attaches to Beverly when he sleeps blissfully on her head. The seagull that Doris constantly shoos away arguably wants to connect with Doris (or the people at Mr. C’s), and the birds connect in the nest in the V of the VFW sign. Beverly’s “heart skip[s] a beat” as she watches “the bird returning home— bringing something back to the nest” (200). Connection moves Beverly, and she sees those connections both among people and in nature.
Facing the Cruel but Kind World
Similar to presence and absence, cruelty and kindness coexist, and Beverly must learn not to let the inherent cruelty of the world taint the kindness in the world. Beverly sums up the theme with a juxtaposition, “Buddy was gone from the world and Jerome was in it. There was no equity in that—not at all” (143). The juxtaposition of beloved dog and vicious bully highlights the world’s unfairness. In an equitable world, Buddy would be here, and Jerome would be gone. Yet the presence of Buddy indicates that the world is not void of equity: Beverly got to form a bond with Buddy. It didn’t last as long as she wanted, but the world was kind enough to put an animal in her life for a period.
Beverly’s experiences of kindness include Iola, Elmer, Raymie, Doris, and the many other positive influences in her life. Jerome, the primary antagonist, is cruel and dangerous, but he is also outnumbered. Still, Elmer explains that there are Jeromes everywhere. Eradicating all cruelty may be unrealistic, but DiCamillo suggests that the actions of just one person (Charles, for example, who sits on Jerome in the sand after the robbery) can neutralize toxicity. After Elmer tells Beverly about Jerome’s savage bullying, Beverly wants to act, but she can’t find Jerome and she doesn’t destroy anything—instead, she stares at the ocean. She isn’t yet equipped or ready to act. Instead, she and Elmer focus on their connection. Elmer says to Beverly, “Most everything is incredibly stupid. Speaking of which: Wanna go to a dance?” (175). The “stupidity” of the world doesn’t limit Elmer and Beverly. They continue to live and do things, like attending a Christmas in July party. The world is neither completely cruel nor entirely kind, and another part of Beverly’s story is facing the mix of good and bad.
The world can be a terrifying, “stupid” place, but, with the exception of Jerome (and perhaps Freddie), the characters remain open to kindness. Iola lets Beverly into her life even though Beverly could be a criminal. Elmer and Beverly become friends (and romantic interests) though they begin as antagonists. Doris watches out for Beverly even though she doesn’t have to. Their bonds indicate a belief in kindness––people can hurt one another; conversely, they can help each other.
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By Kate DiCamillo
