57 pages • 1 hour read
Emily HenryHappy Place
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Maine Cottage
Sabrina’s family cottage on Maine’s coast acts represents friendship, happiness, and nostalgia. As the site of the group’s yearly trip, the beautiful home symbolizes deepening friendships, joy, and fond memories. This is why Harriet, Wyn, Sabrina, Cleo, Parth, and Kimmy all feel the loss when Sabrina explains the house will be sold: “now this house—our house, this pocket of the universe where we always belong, where no matter what else is happening, we’re safe and happy—that’s going away” (21). This reaction shows that the friend groups worries that if summer trips to Maine end, so will an era of their friendship, one they will miss dearly.
The Maine cottage is also Harriet’s “happy place,” the location of many of her best memories. In fact, when Harriet meditates, she always pictures the Maine cottage with her friends—this is where she can most readily find inner peace.
“Real Life” Versus “Happy Place”
The nonlinear timeline juxtaposes two motifs: the nostalgic happiness of the past and the conflicts of the present. In the present, chapters labeled “Real Life” describe an exhausted, hurt, angry, and deeply wounded Harriet. She can’t accept her situation—pursuing a medical career she hates, separated from Wyn despite still being in love, growing apart from her friends despite needing their support more than ever. In contrast, the “Happy Place” chapters display Harriet enjoying life. Harriet, Sabrina, and Cleo become close friends and enjoy lovely vacations in Maine, and the reader follows Harriet’s romance with Wyn, from first date to marriage proposal. Although the novel makes it clear that not all of Harriet’s past is blissful—flashbacks reveals cracks in Harriet and Wyn’s relationship, while chapters about Harriet’s childhood with her emotionally unavailable parents are titled “Unhappy Place,” and those about Wyn’s father passing away are called “Dark Place”—most of the novel’s memories are uplifting, sweet, and full of love.
The nonlinear timeline thus builds suspense; readers don’t know why Harriet and Wyn broke up before they see Harriet’s full characterization—understanding her desire to please the people around her sometimes is a character flaw.
Harriet’s Pottery
Making pottery becomes a source of freedom, fun, and coping for Harriet. Her pottery symbolizes relaxation, control, and discovering her own happiness. Unlike in her surgery residency, Harriet doesn’t have to worry about being right when she makes pottery—molding clay doesn’t have high stakes, such as life and death. No patient’s life is in her hands, and she is in complete control of the artwork with no terrifying variables. She can also escape her ever-moving, analytical mind by entering a flow state during the creative process: “Nothing’s riding on it. If I mess up, it doesn’t matter. I can start over, and honestly, I don’t even mind. Because when I’m working on it, I feel good. [...] I zone out and let my mind wander” (205).
When Harriet started the hobby, it offered her a way to deal with her pain after Wyn left. During her alone time making pottery before Sabrina’s wedding, she becomes a different person, more fulfilled and happier: “I lose myself in the rhythm of it. Coning it up. Coning down. [...] Throwing makes my mind feel like the sea on a clear day, all my thoughts pleasantly diffused beneath light, rolling along over the back of an ever-moving swell” (337). Harriet’s pottery becomes a catalyst for her to make a life-changing choice: dropping out of residency to pursue pottery-making, a new “happy place.”
Related Titles
By Emily Henry
