A Summary of Chapter Eleven

In Chapter Eleven, seven women and girls, aged 16-37, meet for the first time in Manteo’s Elizabethan Gardens on the Outer Banks. The Seven are known to one another by the colors of the rainbow, a way of distancing themselves from their past traumas. They met online, brought together by a manifesto of sorts written by Red, titled “Free Virginia Dare.” 

In her essay, Red uses the story of Virginia Dare as an example to illustrate the way women are turned into symbols, reduced down to ideas or ideals instead of being recognized in their totality—an act of erasure that she argues is the basis for abuse. 

Virginia Dare was the first child born to English parents in America, on August 18, 1587 on Roanoke Island where The Seven are assembling. Nothing is known about her except the fact of her birth, because the colony into which she was born—known today as the Lost Colony—vanished completely by the time its founder, her grandfather, John White, returned from a voyage to England for supplies.  In spite of this, her name has been used by advertisers, authors and activists, both liberal and conservative, to sell their products, narratives and ideologies. 

There is a statue of Virginia Dare in the Elizabethan Gardens, which The Seven are planning to steal and transport down the Outer Banks to its southernmost extreme, the tip of Cape Hatteras, which is surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic Ocean. 

The hurricane mentioned in Chapter Nine, whose name is here revealed to be Orville, is now predicted to make landfall on the Outer Banks around noon the following day. The Seven plan to unload the statue of Virginia Dare onto the beach and tie themselves to her so that when the storm surge comes they will be drowned. 

They are calling this “The Symbol to End Symbolism” and hope that their deaths can be a catalyst to improving the world that has been so cruel to them. They have written a declaration, to be published upon their deaths, which they have scheduled to send to reporters after Orville makes landfall. They each have a unique relationship to this decision, reflective of their unique situations, but to all it feels like a hopeful and empowering act. 

The Seven come from different backgrounds, and have experienced different forms of abuse. Red, the author of the manifesto, was raised in a cult. When she left, she resolved to use her life to fight the types of oppression she experienced. Orange was an aspiring dancer, derailed from that dream by a boyfriend. Yellow is a local high-schooler, devoted to appeasing her mother’s hyper-vigilance. Green is a mother of three, determined to protect her children from their father. Blue was a student of mythology, passionate about her subject until an affair with her professor ended badly. (Her father owns a moving company, and she is supplying the van The Seven will use to move the statue.) Violet is a drug addict in love with ideas of chaos and destruction. And Indigo has taken a vow of silence because of what she experienced. Her past is not discussed in this chapter. 

The chapter watches The Seven arriving at the Gardens and greeting one another, dipping back into their pasts as each one is introduced. Near the conclusion, the Governor’s order to evacuate in advance of the hurricane is issued via an alert on their phones. And Violet, the last to arrive, sees road crews barricading the entrance to the southbound lane of Route 12, the only road to Cape Hatteras, which The Seven had planned to take with Virginia Dare.