Janie’s discovery of the milk carton is the novel’s inciting incident. By challenging what Janie thought she knew about her life, the milk carton jump starts the plot of the novel. Initially, the milk carton symbolizes disruption and danger. Janie feels burdened by it and worries that a friend or family member will see it and thus learn her secret. As the novel progresses, though, Janie comes to see the milk carton as a touchstone, checking her notebook to confirm its presence: “I’m like a toddler with my blanket,” she thinks. “I can’t get very far from my carton” (143). Janie’s feelings continue to progress in later chapters. She eventually thinks of the milk carton an extension of her identity. When Sarah-Charlotte and her mother question her about it, Janie considers destroying the milk carton, but can’t: The milk carton was all that existed of herself” (160).

Janie’s dreams are a frequent motif in the novel. Even before she finds the milk carton, Janie shows a tendency to daydream. Her dreaminess precedes the start of the novel by at least a year: the narrator reveals that “Her last-year’s daydream—before a driver’s license absorbed all daydream time—had been about her own future family” (4).