Opal: Glass Teeth and the Hunger for Self-Annihilation

Overview

Opal is the narrator of “Some of Us are Grapefruit,” the twenty‑first story in the anthology Death in the Mouth. She is a woman whose mother had glass shards surgically implanted in her gums when she was three, giving her a set of sharp, triangular glass “teeth.” As an adult, Opal discovers she is an alukah—a devouring supernatural entity—and has killed seven lovers by feeding on them. After her mother’s death, Opal walks to the island where she was found as a newborn, intending to unmake herself on the same stone altar. Her dead lovers follow and restrain her, offering themselves again. Opal’s arc is one of consuming guilt, a longing for oblivion, and the ironic persistence of love in the face of her monstrosity.

This character analysis draws exclusively on the text of chapter 21 (“Some of Us are Grapefruit” by Rivers Solomon) and the supplied outline for that chapter. Where interpretation is offered, it is clearly distinguished from explicit story facts.

Plot Role

Opal serves as both protagonist and antagonist of her own story. She is the agent of destruction—seven times over—yet she is also the victim of a nature she never chose. Her role is to personify the theme of insatiable hunger and the desire for release. The plot moves from childhood memory (the glass‑teeth implantation) through her adult relationship with Joan and other lovers, to the climactic return to Silver Island. Opal’s journey is an attempted suicide by supernatural means: she wants to be “unborn” on the altar where she first appeared.

Within the anthology, her story belongs to a cluster of tales about unnatural origins and the cost of being other. The outline positions chapter 21 after chapters about a supernatural entity tempting a performer (chapter 20) and before a story about a teen abducted by a craft (chapter 22). Opal’s chapter thus continues the anthology’s exploration of bodily transformation and unwanted inheritance.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Motivations:

• To stop feeding: Opal explicitly says she is “so tired of being hungry” and hopes that on the island she might sleep. Her hunger is not a choice; it is the core compulsion of her alukah nature.
• To unmake herself: She lies on the altar and waits to be “unborn” or to become “a curse living in the ground.” This is a direct desire for self‑annihilation driven by guilt over the seven lovers she has killed.
• To be loved and known: Despite her destructiveness, Opal craves intimacy. She describes being “desperate to fall into” Joan’s body. She admits that what she has always wanted is for her mother to tether herself to her after death.

Traits revealed through actions:

• Self‑awareness: Opal knows what she is. She says, “I was the devil beating in the heart of the woods,” and later calls herself a “demon.” Unlike the lovers who idealise her as a “Glass Teeth God,” she sees her own evil clearly.
• Manipulative yet remorseful: She used her mother’s sorrows during woodland liaisons to create clones (Night, Micah, Juniper, Sunny) that would take the brunt of abuse meant for her mother. She later weeps over this. Her feeding is addictive to her lovers, but she also “weep[s] for them and their frail skin.”
• Passive in key moments: On the island she does not call out “no”; she lets her lovers drag her back from the altar. At the story’s end she remains silent as they say “Then eat,” suggesting resignation or willingness to continue the cycle.

Chronological Arc

1. Infancy (birth to age three): Found on a stone altar by Mother (a nineteen‑year‑old girl at Silver Island). Opal is a fully formed newborn with long hair and a stub of umbilical cord. Mother takes her and leaves the island.
2. Age three: Mother has glass shards surgically implanted into Opal’s gums, giving her transparent, triangular teeth.
3. Age six/nine: Opal is aware that others find her unsettling. She learns about her dead “siblings”—Night, Micah, Juniper, Sunny—who were clones made from Mother’s sorrow. She discovers she can bring dolls to a kind of half‑life with her breath.
4. Age twenty‑two: Her first lover Camille. Opal drinks Camille’s blood for three years. During a storm she first hears the word alukah whispered by the trees.
5. Mid‑forties: Her relationship with Joan, a seventy‑six‑year‑old woman with tattoos. Joan commands her to bite; Opal finally does, killing Joan. This is the seventh lover she has killed.
6. Mother’s death: Mother dies in Opal’s arms. Opal grinds her glass teeth in her sleep, producing fragments.
7. Post‑funeral: Opal walks to Silver Island at low tide, followed by the ghosts of her seven lovers (including Joan and Camille). They are tethered to her by invisible ropes made of hair. The lovers try to warn off the living, but also restrain Opal when she tries to unmake herself on the altar. They strengthen the ropes and pull her away, then offer themselves again.

Relationships

Mother: The central bond of Opal’s life. Mother is both a protector and a user: she gave Opal glass teeth because she “wants only truth,” yet she also admits she used the earlier clones to take pain meant for herself. On her deathbed, Mother looks at Opal with full knowledge of what Opal has done. Opal confesses she fell in love with Mother and “had to make myself hers.” The relationship is suffused with ambivalence—love, gratitude, resentment, and a desire to be finally claimed.

Joan: The seventh and most vividly described lover. Joan is a seventy‑six‑year‑old woman with indigo vine tattoos; she photographs Opal and commands her to bite. Joan assures Opal that being insatiable is not a sin. After death, she becomes one of the ghosts who ties Opal and says “Then eat.” Joan represents an acceptance of Opal’s nature that Opal herself cannot reach.

Camille: The first lover, met when Opal is twenty‑two. Camille describes being emptied out as fulfilling—“the only time she felt filled was when I was drinking up a pool of her.” She is the one with whom Opal first floats and hears the word alukah. Camille’s ghost is first to appear on the island.

The other five lovers: Named only Greta (who has a hole the size of a pomegranate in her throat) and the unnamed others. Together they form a chorus that both warns new victims and repeatedly offers themselves to Opal, even after death.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Theme and Symbol Connections

• Transformation: Opal’s glass teeth are a permanent, visible alteration. She cannot hide behind a normal smile. The teeth also symbolise the transformation from human to devourer—they are both a tool and a prison. See the transformation theme page.
• Trauma and memory: Mother’s abusive past on Silver Island—and the clones she sent to suffer in her place—forms a trauma that Opal inherits. She knows her mother’s history intimately, and her own feeding may be a re‑enactment. See trauma and memory.
• Identity and otherness: Opal is repeatedly described as not quite human: “not a girl, not a person,” “a strange bug‑eyed dog.” Her identity as an alukah marks her as radically other. See identity and otherness.
• Revenge and justice: Opal never seeks revenge, but she does seek justice for the lives she has taken by offering her own destruction. The lovers’ refusal to let her die suggests a cosmic irony: the hunger cannot be stilled even by death. See revenge and justice.
• Family bonds: The relationship between Opal and Mother is the emotional core. Mother’s love is genuine yet compromised by her past. Opal’s drive to unmake herself is partly a desire to rejoin Mother in death. See family bonds.

The symbol of grapefruit in the title appears when Mother says, “Some of us are bitter. Some of us are grapefruit.” Opal interprets this as an acceptance of her own bitterness and monstrosity. The fruit becomes a metaphor for a nature that cannot be sweetened.

Book‑Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why does Opal’s mother implant glass teeth in her?
Explicit: Mother says she wants “truth” and that with glass teeth Opal cannot “hide behind a smile.” The text also shows that Mother values harsh reality over prettiness. (Interpretation: the glass teeth also symbolise making Opal’s inner strangeness outwardly visible, forcing the world to see her as she truly is.)

2. What is an alukah, and how does Opal discover she is one?
Explicit: The word alukah is first whispered to her by the trees during a storm when she is twenty‑two and floating with Camille. It means a devouring entity. The text later confirms that she was made from the sorrows Mother expelled in the woods, and that she moulds clones from those sorrows.

3. Why do Opal’s dead lovers follow her to Silver Island?
Explicit: They are tethered to her with “invisible rope made of hair” that they tied themselves. They follow to warn off the living and to restrain Opal when she tries to unmake herself. Their motivation appears to be both love and a compulsion to remain connected to their devourer.

4. Does Opal succeed in unmaking herself at the end of the story?
Explicit: No. Her lovers pull her from the altar, tie her more strongly, and drag her back across the beach, saying “Then eat.” The story ends with their command; Opal does not die or disappear. The ending suggests the cycle of hunger continues.

5. What is Opal’s relationship to Mother’s earlier children (Night, Micah, Juniper, Sunny)?
Explicit: They were clones of Mother, made from the sorrows expelled during woodland liaisons. Mother sent them to the old house to suffer in her place, claiming they “weren’t real” like Opal. Opal learns that she herself created those clones because she “took the sorrows” from Mother in love. This makes Opal the origin of her own dead siblings, deepening her guilt.

For a fuller discussion of the ending’s implications, see the ending explained page. For more reader questions, visit the questions and answers section.