The Buddha Statues Symbol Analysis

The Buddha statues that Poppy notices in every city and village in Thailand symbolize Poppy’s complex view of gender and the Buddhist “middle way” in Laurie Frankel’s This is How it Always is. As a young transgender woman, Poppy is immediately drawn to the Buddha statues because they are unmistakably feminine. Poppy knows that Buddha is a boy, but each of his statues have long, shapely fingernails, and his face and lips are full and womanly. Nox, a local Thai man, tells Poppy that Buddha is represented as feminine because femininity is “peaceful, gentle, [and] nonaggressive.” Furthermore, Nox explains that Buddha’s body is often feminine because Buddha had many bodies before enlightenment, since in Buddhism, nothing is permanent, not even one’s body.

As Poppy’s gender identity is at odds with her physical body, she is drawn to the Buddhist belief in the impermanence of bodies. In this light, Poppy’s body is less important than how she feels and identifies on the inside. Poppy feels a certain connection to Buddha, a man, she says, who was born male, shaved his head, “got enlightened, and then ended up looking like a girl.” Poppy is so drawn to Buddha and his beliefs that she vows to be a Buddhist for the rest of her life. The Buddhists believe in the “middle way”—which the novel describes as finding happiness in a world that isn’t always so happy and accepting—and this is what Poppy swears to do as well. In the Buddha statues, Poppy finds the courage to continue in a world that has largely rejected her, and she sees a reflection of herself—someone who is neither entirely male nor entirely female.