The Basket: A Symbol of Abandonment and Rootlessness in Buckeye

What Is the Basket?

The basket is a literal object—a wicker container kept on the windowsill of the Open Arms Orphanage in Doyle, Ohio. It serves as a "just-in-case" receptacle for unwanted infants. In Chapter Five, administrator Lydia Verts explains that the basket has a history of false alarms: empty Cracker Jack boxes, a discarded wingtip shoe, a watermelon rind, a dead blue jay. But one night in October 1918, it holds a real baby—an eight-month-old girl with red hair, wrapped in a cream-colored blanket, with a pinned note: "Please take care of this baby as I cannot. I named her Margaret, but call her what you like." This is Margaret Salt, the novel’s central figure of rootlessness.

The basket thus begins as a functional, unremarkable object that becomes the vessel of abandonment. Lydia later uses the basket as a makeshift crib, but its symbolic weight endures: it is the point of origin for Margaret’s lifelong sense of being unwanted.

Recurrence and Transformation

Although the basket itself appears only in the orphanage chapter, its symbolic life extends throughout the narrative. Margaret cycles through four failed foster placements—including an abusive year with the Selby family—always returning to Open Arms. She never finds a stable home. When she marries Felix Salt, she hides her orphanage past, presenting herself as a woman without a history. In Chapter Six, she feels "a child in the orphanage" compared to the grown-up she must become in Columbus. The basket’s legacy is her constant performance of a self she invents.

The basket recurs most powerfully in Margaret’s own motherhood. After giving birth to Tom, she is unable to bond with him. When Felix finally reveals the truth about Tom’s biological father, Cal Jenkins, Margaret does not rush to her son. Instead, she maintains distance. In Chapter Twenty-Three, Tom follows her through Columbus and watches her work at a jewelry counter, but cannot bring himself to approach her. Later, after Felix’s death, Margaret apologizes to Tom and reveals her own abandonment—but the apology arrives decades late. The basket pattern repeats: Margaret abandons her child emotionally, just as she was physically abandoned.

How the Symbol’s Meaning Changes

In the opening scenes, the basket represents a cruel fact: a mother who could not keep her child. Lydia tries to soften it by claiming the note was kind, but Margaret knows better: "Kind and loving didn’t square with leaving a person in a basket." The basket is a container of loss and unanswered questions.

For Margaret, the basket becomes a psychological cage. She cannot ask her mother why she was left, so she internalizes the abandonment as a flaw in herself. When she later sees mothers with children on the streetcar, she must get off early to escape the pain. The basket’s meaning shifts from external object to internal wound—a hidden identity that she never fully resolves.

For Tom, the basket is unknown until he learns of his own abandonment. The revelation shatters his sense of family. The basket thus becomes a symbol of inherited trauma: the sins of the mother visited on the son. Yet by the novel’s end, a partial healing occurs. In Chapter Twenty-Four, Margaret and Tom share a brief embrace after Felix’s funeral. The basket’s final meaning is not closure, but the possibility of breaking the cycle through acknowledgment.

Character Connections

Margaret Salt: The basket is her origin. Her entire adult life is an attempt to outrun it—through marriage, through performance, through geographic distance. But she never escapes the question of why her mother left her, and in turn she replicates the abandonment with Tom.
Felix Salt: He knows Margaret’s secret but never uses it against her, even as their marriage fails. Felix’s own guilt over surviving the USS Rigdon sinking complicates his silence. The basket is a secret that both partners carry.
Tom Buckeye Salt: He is the second generation of abandonment. His name "Buckeye" connects him to the tree in the Jenkins’ yard, but his roots are severed. Learning about the basket from his perspective deepens the theme of rootlessness.
Lydia Verts: The orphanage administrator who finds Margaret in the basket. She becomes a surrogate mother, but her love cannot undo the original loss. She is the first witness to the basket’s meaning.
Cal Jenkins: Tom’s biological father, but unaware of his paternity until late. His own history of war trauma and guilt over not fighting parallels Margaret’s hidden pain. The basket indirectly affects him through the secret Felix keeps.

Theme Connections

Secrecy and Family Lies: Margaret hides her orphanage past from Felix and Tom. The basket is the origin of that secret. When Tom learns the truth, the family’s foundation cracks. Explore more on the Secrecy and Family Lies theme page.
Mediumship and Grief: Becky Hanover’s séances attempt to bridge the gap between living and dead, while the basket represents a permanent separation. The inability to contact the mother who left Margaret underscores the limits of spiritualism. For more, see Mediumship and Grief.
Marital Estrangement and Hidden Identities: Margaret’s hidden identity strains her marriage to Felix. Felix’s secrecy about Tom’s paternity further estranges them. The basket is the root of both lies. Read more on Marital Estrangement.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Margaret’s apology to Tom and his acceptance of her embrace indicate a fragile reconciliation. The basket does not disappear, but its hold loosens. For analysis of this theme, visit Forgiveness and Reconciliation.

Character Pages

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the basket function as a symbol of rootlessness?

The basket is where Margaret’s known history begins—abandoned without family, place, or name. She spends her life searching for stability yet never roots herself. Every home she enters is temporary. When she later abandons Tom, she perpetuates the cycle of rootlessness. The basket, as a container without content (except the baby), mirrors her inner emptiness.

2. Compare Margaret’s abandonment as an infant with the abandonment she inflicts on Tom.

Margaret is physically left in a basket with a note. She has no choice. Tom, however, is raised by Felix and sees his mother only sporadically; Margaret chooses distance, sending cards but refusing to visit. The emotional abandonment is less visible but equally damaging. Both feel unwanted, but Tom has the added burden of discovering the family secret as an adult.

3. In what ways does the basket connect to the theme of secrecy in the novel?

The basket is a hidden origin. Margaret never tells Felix she grew up in an orphanage, and Felix never tells Tom that Cal is his biological father. The basket becomes the first secret in a chain of lies that stretch across generations. When Tom confronts the truth, he understands that his entire family identity was built on omission.

4. How does the basket help shape the novel’s exploration of identity?

For Margaret, identity is a performance. She learns to dress, speak, and act in ways that erase her orphanage past. The basket forces her to become a self-made woman, but this construction is fragile. For Tom, learning about the basket shatters his sense of self as a Salt; he must rebuild his identity from what he knows of his biological father, Cal. The basket thus highlights how identity is often an intentional response to loss.