Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dibs in Search of Self, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Therapy, Empathy, and Non-Judgment
Parental Expectations vs. Self-Determination
Trust and Security
Intelligence vs. Emotional and Social Skills
Summary
Analysis
The following Thursday, Dibs returns for his seventh session. He briskly starts to construct a toy village, setting up churches and houses, and he evocatively describes the world that he has made, the seasons, and the trees. According to Dibs, it is a beautiful, comfortable town with lots of trees; he describes how the wind and the trees whisper to each other. One tree tells the wind that it wants them to travel together—the tree doesn’t want to be alone and sad.
Dibs’s description of the wind and the trees is also symbolic, and it foreshadows the story he describes later in the chapter. The story signifies Dibs’s desire to be free like the wind, rather than being stuck in one place and isolated, like the tree. Dibs’s play here also shows how much Dibs is improving in his expressiveness because of the play therapy.
Themes
Dibs then starts to work on a puzzle that was left on a table, and he brings it near Axline’s feet, completing it quickly. He notices that the puzzle is of Tom Tom The Piper’s Son, and he starts singing a song he learned at school from Miss Jane. When Axline asks if he knows other grown-ups, he says he knows Hedda, Jake (their gardener), and Millie (who does the laundry).
Dibs again reveals how much information he has absorbed from school and kept to himself. However, it took play sessions with Axline, and building mutual trust, for Dibs to be comfortable sharing some of the things he has learned without feeling that he is being tested on them. It’s noteworthy that all the adults he knows seem to be paid staff—he lists his teachers and people who work at his home, but it doesn’t seem that he’s been exposed to adults in a purely social context. This again shows how emotionally deprived Dibs has been.
Themes
Dibs describes how Jake once trimmed one of the big trees in the family’s yard—a tree that grew close enough for Dibs to reach out his window and touch it. Dibs’s father wanted it trimmed, even though Jake tried to explain that Dibs liked touching the branch out his window. But his father wanted it cut off anyway, saying it spoiled the look of the tree and he didn’t want Dibs hanging out of his window. He then put a metal safety screen on Dibs’s window so he couldn’t fall out. But when Jake trimmed the tree, he saved the tip of the branch and gave it to Dibs.
Dibs’s story illustrates how much he valued kindness and empathy even before he started play therapy with Axline. Jake understood Dibs’s love for the tree in a way that his father didn’t, and he gave Dibs the branch to show that he cared and that Dibs wasn’t alone. Just as Dibs’s family seems to frequently lock him inside rooms, here Dibs shows another form of imposed isolation: placing a metal screen on his window so that he cannot reach for the outside world. This makes Dibs feel even more isolated and less free.
Themes
Axline asks if Dibs spends much time with Jake, and Dibs says that he used to go out into the yard where Jake would tell him stories. Once Jake told a story of the last leaf on the tree. The leaf was sad because it thought it had been forgotten. But the wind blew down the lonely leaf and it was blown all around the world before coming back to the yard. Jake then gave the leaf to Dibs, saying that the leaf liked Dibs better than anyone else. Dibs mounted and framed the leaf.
Jake again displays his deep empathy for Dibs in telling the story of the lonely leaf. The leaf represents Dibs in that Dibs, too, feels lonely and left behind by his peers. Jake also tries to add to Dibs’s self-esteem by describing how the leaf could be free by traveling around the world with the wind. Because Dibs has already established the wind as a symbol of freedom in his mind, this gives him hope that he, too, might find a greater sense of freedom.
Themes
Get the entire Dibs in Search of Self LitChart as a printable PDF.
After Dibs finishes his story, he then walks over to the dollhouse and locks it up. When Axline asks why Dibs did that, Dibs says he doesn’t know. He then whimpers and asks Axline for her help with his shoelace before going over to the nursing bottle and sucking on it. Axline asks if Dibs is sad, and he nods: he explains that Jake had a heart attack so he doesn’t often come around the house anymore. Dibs misses Jake. He says, “I guess, maybe, he is a friend?” Axline says he seems like a very good friend.
Dibs again illustrates how he retreats from the world when he feels emotional distress, which is clear in his sudden inability to tie his shoe and his desire to suck on the nursing bottle. As he still isn’t fully able to express and overcome his sadness about Jake on his own, he reverts to a more infantile state to try to find comfort and avoid these emotions.
Themes
Dibs walks over to the window and looks at the church, explaining that Jake and his grandmother go to church, but his father and mother don’t, so he and Dorothy don’t go. Dibs then asks how many minutes are left, and Axline says eight. He decides to play with the dollhouse the rest of the time. As he pretends that he is getting the grown-ups ready for bed, he says that the laundress can’t go to bed. The mother suggests that the laundress get a rocking chair, but the laundress is worried about bothering the man.
The church becomes a recurring symbol of Dibs’s self-determination, in addition to being a stand-in for new experiences. The loving adults in Dibs’s life (Jake and his grandmother) go to church, while the more critical adults in his life do not. Thus, over time, Dibs becomes more enamored of the church not only because it is something he is interested in, but also because it counters the expectations of his parents, even if this rebellion is subconscious.
Themes
As Dibs plays, Axline accidentally kicks the puzzle Dibs made, and she straightens it. Dibs realizes what happened and comes over to see if Axline fixed it correctly. Dibs then locks the playroom door. After a moment, Axline tells him to unlock it because it’s time to go home. Dibs unlocks the door, puts his hat and coat on with resignation, and walks down to the reception room as he waves goodbye to Axline. After Dibs is gone, Axline reflects on how strong he is and wonders whether Jake knew how much of an impact his understanding and kindness had.
Dibs’s decision to lock the playroom door shines a different light on his constant preoccupation with locks. It indicates that there is perhaps a part of him that recognizes that he wants to be protected from those outside of his walls, like the cruelty of his father. But at the same time, he doesn’t want to be isolated from friends like Jake, adding to his inner conflict.
Themes
