Ace of Spades

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-7

Part 1, Chapters 8-15

Part 2, Chapters 16-27

Part 3, Chapters 28-35

Part 3, Chapters 36-44

Part 3, Chapter 45-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Ace of Spades

The ace of spades playing card is a major motif in the story. On a surface level, the ace of spades is a symbol for Aces and represents the racist legacy of Niveus Academy. Members of the Ace of Spades Secret Society use the card to identify themselves to one another and to enact psychological torture against Black students. Chiamaka Adebayo and Devon Richards come to associate the ace of spades with Anti-Black Racism at Niveus and the racist plot to destroy their lives.

The ace of spades playing card is traditionally the highest valued card in a deck. As a white supremacist group, the Ace of Spades Secret Society members see themselves as the most valuable members of society. The ace of spades was also used by American soldiers during the Vietnam War. During French colonial rule in Vietnam, the ace of spades came to be associated with death, so American soldiers would leave the card on the dead bodies of Viet Cong soldiers as well as Vietnamese civilians to terrify them.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

8,800+ In-Depth Study Guides
4,700+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
Downloadable PDFs

The context and history of the ace of spades playing card are carried into its symbolism in the book. While Ace of Spades does not explicitly explore this history, the symbol of the card maintains these broader cultural connotations. Chiamaka and Devon never learn the historical meaning behind the ace of spades, but they do learn what it symbolizes: white supremacy, death, and a racist plot that terrorizes them throughout their final year at Niveus.

Chiamaka’s Hair

Chiamaka’s hair symbolizes her culture, her identity, and her struggle with being different from her white peers. She always straightens her hair to fit in and feels embarrassed and out of place when she has to go to school with her natural hair. She asserts that she does not straighten her hair because she hates it, but “because everyone else hates it for [her]” (137). When she does not straighten her hair, people stare at her and even touch her hair without her permission. She also runs the risk of getting in trouble, as certain school rule books ban her natural hair. This is something that many Black women and girls experience; their hair is seen as unprofessional in many work and school environments.

Though Chiamaka does love wearing her hair naturally, or in cornrows that her mother does for her, she only ever goes out in public with straightened hair. She feels conflicted about this, especially because she does not want her mother to think that she is ashamed of her Nigerian heritage. She acknowledges that she does love her natural hair, but straightening it is a kind of defense mechanism that allows her to feel more comfortable in a white-dominated world. She convinces herself that if she can conform to Eurocentric beauty standards, then racism will not impact her. As the Aces plot unfolds, however, she learns that there is no degree of conformity that will make her immune to racism; the system will always view her as “inferior.”

The Aces (Guy Fawkes) Mask

The mask that Aces members wear is a Guy Fawkes mask. This mask was originally created as a stylized representation of Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot. The Gunpowder Plot was an attempt to blow up British Parliament buildings and kill the king in 1605. The design for the modern-day Guy Fawkes mask was popularized by the movie V for Vendetta (2005) as well as the comic series on which it was based, which was published between 1982 and 1985. The protagonist of the series, V, is a vigilante who tries to destroy the authoritarian government in a dystopian England. Because of V for Vendetta, the mask has come to symbolize the fight against authoritarian power and control.

A few years later, the hacktivist group Anonymous adopted the mask when they protested against the Church of Scientology, which is notorious for photographing anti-Scientology protesters. The masks were a way for protesters to hide their identities. In recent years, many different protest movements all over the world have adopted the Guy Fawkes mask and used it as a symbol of anti-authoritarianism. It is ironic that the Aces members use the Guy Fawkes mask to hide their identities, as they are explicitly upholding a system of authority and power, the very things that the Guy Fawkes mask criticizes. For Aces members, the mask is a symbol of white supremacy and systemic racism against Black students at Niveus. All the students at the Snowflake Charity Masked Ball put on the Guy Fawkes Mask to terrify Devon and Chiamaka and to indicate their complicity in the Aces plot.