Ella Minnow Pea Themes

Ella Minnow Pea takes place on Nollop, a fictional island off the coast of South Carolina. The island is named after Nevin Nollop, the creator of the famous pangram (a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet), “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” A statue in the island’s main square commemorates Nollop’s achievement, with each letter of the pangram inscribed upon a tile at the statue’s base. When tiles of certain…

Limitation of the freedom of speech is central to Ella Minnow Pea’s plot. On the island of Nollop, a statue in the main square commemorates the island’s namesake, Nevin Nollop, with each letter of the pangram (a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet), “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” inscribed on tiles. When tiles of certain letters begin fall off of the statue, the governing body of Nollop…

The Council that oversees the island of Nollop determines that the island’s namesake, Nevin Nollop, is somehow intervening from beyond the grave and causing tiles from his commemorative statue to fall. The Council interprets this supposed divine intervention to mean that Nollopian citizens should no longer use the letters on the tiles that fall. As others try to argue for more logical reasons as to why the tiles are falling—and therefore why the letters…