Themes Jackal Erin E. Adams

Cycles of Loss and Return in Jackal: Breaking the Pattern of Silence

Thematic Claim: Repetition as a Cage and Confrontation as the Key

In Jackal, Erin E. Adams constructs a world where loss is not an isolated event but a recurring ritual—every summer solstice since 1985, a Black girl vanishes from the woods of Johnstown. This cyclical pattern traps survivors, families, and even the town itself in a loop of grief, denial, and helplessness. The novel’s central claim is that the cycle of loss can only be broken when individuals and communities stop looking away and actively confront the truth: the past is never past, and the forces—both human and supernatural—that enable these disappearances thrive on silence. Through Liz Rocher's return to her hometown, the parallel losses of Melissa "Mel" Parker and Caroline Parker, and the final confrontation with the entity known as Jack, Adams traces a movement from passive recurrence to active, painful resolution. But the novel resists a tidy ending: even after Jack is killed, the cycle of fear and storytelling continues, suggesting that breaking free requires ongoing vigilance and self-awareness.

Tracing the Cycle Through the Plot

1. The Systemic Cycle: A Town That Forgets Every Year

The most literal manifestation of the cycle is the annual abduction pattern. In Chapter Nine, Liz attends a meeting of mothers whose daughters were taken—Alice Walker (1985), Patrice Carter (1988), Morgan Daniels (1994), Keisha Woodson (2002), and others. The meeting is held in a sanctuary with twenty chairs, but only five women attend. As Liz observes, "All these women are Black," and all the missing girls are Black. This reveals a systemic cycle: the town’s power structures—the police, the media, the wealthier residents—turn away each time, allowing the pattern to repeat. Tanisha, Alice’s mother, recalls that the police dismissed evidence; Kylie, sister of a victim, recounts seeing a creature in the woods that others dismiss as fantasy. The cycle is maintained by complicity, silence, and the refusal to see the pattern as anything more than isolated tragedies.

This systemic cycle parallels the natural cycle of the solstice itself: the longest day of the year, a time of literal light, becomes the darkest day for these families. Liz realizes that the disappearances are not random—they are timed to the solstice, suggesting a ritualistic, almost sacral repetition. Yet the women who gather are not united; they argue over whether the culprit is a man or a "thing," and whether the police will ever help. The cycle of loss is also a cycle of failed justice.

2. Liz’s Personal Cycle: Running Away and Returning

Liz’s own life mirrors the larger pattern. She left Johnstown fourteen years earlier and never looked back, cutting off parts of herself—her hair, her past, her vulnerability—to avoid the pain of what happened to her in the woods as a child. When she returns for Mel’s wedding, she is immediately confronted by her mother Marie Rocher, who criticizes her appearance and pressures her about her breakup. In a key scene, Liz discovers a mouse trapped on a glue trap: "More pink flesh than blood, the chewed sinew and bone of its leg sits exposed in the glue." Marie kills the mouse with three hard whacks. This moment of violent, domestic death echoes the larger cycle of destruction—the small creature caught in a trap, unable to free itself, just as the town is caught in its own patterns.

Liz’s scar, a mark from a childhood encounter with the Jackal (then known as a shadow), throbs when she is under stress. She has spent years denying that anything truly supernatural happened, rationalizing the event as a nightmare. But the cycle of loss forces her to return to the woods, to the site of her trauma, and to confront the entity that has been growing inside her since that night. Her personal return is a microcosm of the thematic return: to break the cycle, she must re-enter the place where the pattern began.

3. The Jackal’s Cycle: Predation, Offering, and Death

In the first-person chapter Jack, the entity itself narrates its own cyclical existence. It remembers Lucy, the Fellow (its human worshipper), and the hearts offered to it over decades. It used those hearts to construct a physical form, but each time it tried to inhabit the Fellow’s body to leave the woods, it failed. The Jackal targeted Liz after sensing her "perfect heart" and bonded a tooth to her, growing with her over the years. When the Fellow died, the entity stole his body but remained trapped. Liz finally confronts it, cracks its ribs, and tears out its heart. In death, the Jackal feels relief and, for the first time, is seen.

This sequence reveals that the cycle of predation was also a cycle of yearning—the Jackal wanted escape, but its own nature (shadow, emptiness) kept it bound. The entity’s death should end the pattern, but the novel complicates this resolution.

Character and Symbol Connections

The theme of cycles is reinforced through recurring symbols that tie characters across time:

  • Denim Jacket: Alice Walker wears her favorite denim jacket when she disappears. The police return it to her mother covered in blood. The jacket becomes an emblem of lost girlhood and the physical evidence that the town fails to follow. Liz later notes how clothing—especially jackets—can be both protective and a marker of identity.

  • Orange Bandana: The strange boy Alice meets gives her an orange bandana before she vanishes. The bandana, a bright signal, recurs in the narrative as a marker of the Jackal’s lure—a color that draws attention yet leads to disappearance.

  • Pink Crayon: Caroline Parker’s pink crayon appears in her drawings, which later reveal a hidden jackal silhouette. The crayon symbolizes childhood and creativity, but also the trace of the predator that haunts her.

  • Crown of Stars / North Star: Liz finds the North Star when she steps outside her mother’s house, using it to ground herself. Later, the stars become a navigation tool for both Liz and Jack. After the entity’s death, Doug’s followers spray-paint summer constellations—the same stars that marked the solstice—on Mel’s house, turning the symbol of guidance into a sign of ongoing fear.

These symbols bridge the personal and the systemic: they are everyday objects that become freighted with the weight of loss and return.

Complexity and Contradiction: The Cycle Persists

Adams does not allow a simple happy ending. Even after Jack is killed, the cycle of loss is not fully broken. At Mel’s funeral, Liz gives a eulogy and then returns to Mel’s house, where black star constellations have been spray-painted by Doug’s followers. Doug, now in prison, still peddles the mythology of Jack, and people are "telling stories, starting legends, and inspiring fear." The cycle of fear perpetuates itself through narrative, even without the physical monster. Caroline clings to Liz, and her drawing contains a jackal silhouette, suggesting that Jack may still linger in memory. Liz admits, "I do not know if Jack is truly dead," and realizes that his anger still lives inside her. She decides to use that anger for herself, but the novel ends with her turning to face a shadow—an ambiguous image that leaves the possibility of a new cycle (or a new form of the old one) open.

The author’s note deepens this complexity: Adams connects the fictional cycles to real historical events—the Johnstown Flood of 1889 and the 1923 racial banishment—showing that cycles of class exploitation and racial fear have long been woven into the town’s fabric. The novel suggests that confronting the truth, though painful, is essential for change, but that change is never final.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Adams use the summer solstice as a structural device for the cycle of loss?

The summer solstice, the longest day of the year, becomes the designated day for the abductions—from 1985 onward. This timing links the disappearances to a natural cycle of light and darkness, suggesting that the pattern is as inevitable as the seasons. Yet Liz discovers that the pattern is man-made (or monster-made), reinforcing the idea that what seems like fate is actually a perpetuated ritual.

2. In what ways is Liz’s personal cycle of avoidance similar to the town’s collective denial?

Liz flees Johnstown and denies her trauma, even refusing to discuss her breakup with her mother. The townspeople similarly avoid investigating the disappearances thoroughly, blaming runaways or outsiders. Both Liz and the town operate on a principle of self-protective suppression. Liz’s eventual confrontation with Jack mirrors the need for the town to stop looking away.

3. How does the symbol of the denim jacket connect Alice and Liz?

Alice’s denim jacket is a treasured possession that becomes a blood-soaked piece of evidence. Liz, when she first arrives, wears a suit and a wig as a form of armor. Later, she discards this disguise. The jacket represents the fragile protection that girlhood offers—and how that protection is torn away. For Alice, the jacket is taken; for Liz, the armor is chosen and then shed.

4. Why does Adams include the scene of the mouse on the glue trap?

The trapped mouse, gnawing its own leg to escape, parallels the girls caught in the cycle of violence. Liz’s mother kills it quickly, but the image of a creature struggling against an inescapable trap mirrors the town’s situation. It also foreshadows Liz’s own scar—the result of being physically trapped and bitten by the Jackal in childhood. The mouse scene introduces the idea that death can be both merciful and brutal.

5. The novel ends with Liz turning to face a shadow. What does this suggest about the possibility of breaking the cycle?

The shadow is ambiguous: it could be a remnant of Jack, a psychological projection, or a new threat. Liz’s choice to face it rather than run indicates that she has adopted a stance of continuous vigilance. The cycle of loss is not permanently broken—it must be actively resisted moment by moment. The ending suggests that true healing requires staying present and refusing to let the cycle repeat through silence or denial.