44 pages • 1 hour read
Ottessa MoshfeghMy Year of Rest and Relaxation
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A 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
Pills
The sedating pills symbolize both the narrator’s desire for rebirth and her avoidant tendencies. Despite her staggering social and economic privilege, she is “plagued with misery, anxiety, and a wish to escape the prison of my mind and body” (18)—but instead of taking truly therapeutic measures, she seeks pharmaceutical escape. Based on the narrator’s lies about insomnia, Dr. Tuttle provides her with a myriad of pills. These are not only sleeping pills but include an outrageous variety of drug classes, from anticonvulsants to antipsychotics. They do, however, all have their own sedative effects (hence their prescription), and the narrator soon becomes heavily reliant on drugs including but not limited to Ambien, Rozerem, Ativan, Xanax, trazodone, lithium, Seroquel, Lunesta, valium, and the fictional Infermiterol. At first, the narrator sees the pills as a means to “drown out my thoughts and judgments, since the constant barrage made it hard not to hate everyone and everything” (17). However, her dependence shows some characteristics of addiction when she can hardly get through a small portion of the waking day. Her reliance on the pills as an escape from reality becomes even more dangerous when she begins Infermiterol, a drug that causes her to black out for days at a time and do things—go out clubbing, buy expensive clothing, call her ex-boyfriend, etc.—that she would never do in her waking life.
Near the end of the novel in January 2001, the narrator discontinues her usual pills in favor of an exclusive Infermiterol protocol, planning a drug-induced hibernation until summer. Relying only on the Infermiterol to get her to June, the narrator eventually emerges transformed from her long period of sleep. This marks a major turning point for the narrator, who, fully rested and with a newfound appreciation for life, no longer turns to pills for escape.
Childhood Home in Poughkeepsie, New York
When the narrator loses both her parents—first her father to cancer and her mother to suicide—she inherits their property, her childhood home in Poughkeepsie, New York. Though an estate lawyer advises her to sell the property, she stalls under the pretense that she may want to live there with her future husband and children. In reality, the narrator is reluctant to sell the house because “[i]t was proof that I had not always been alone in this world” (64). The house is more than just a piece of property; it is a symbol of the narrator’s rocky childhood, and namely her complicated relationship with her late parents. The Poughkeepsie property houses a world of memories, and the narrator cannot think of her childhood home without remembering that “[m]y parents barely seemed to notice I existed” (65). The memories of her distant, somewhat cold relationship with her parents are deeply upsetting for the narrator, and for most of the novel, she is unable to heal from those painful memories because she does not yet have the emotional stamina to face them head on.
It is only after the narrator emerges from her six-month hibernation that she can sell the house. Resurfacing from her long period of rest feeling hopeful for the future and ready to release her past, the narrator instructs the real estate lawyer to sell the house, not even bothering to collect her parents’ belongings that have remained in the house since their deaths. With a more optimistic perspective on life, she understands by the end of the novel that “I could survive without the house,” that “it would soon be someone else’s store of memories, and that was beautiful” (288).
Designer Clothing
Clothing, and specifically expensive, designer clothing, plays a critical role in the novel. For the narrator—wealthy, beautiful, and a self-described “off-duty model” type—she uses clothing to establish herself as “cultured” and therefore valuable in society. This designer clothing is less about self-expression than about adhering to a specific social role. She lands an impressive job at a fine art gallery in Manhattan soon after graduating from Columbia University and, years later, cannot remember the interview; she recalls only what she wore and the fact that she looked good.
When the narrator begins taking the fictional Infermiterol, she experiences days-long blackouts during which she unconsciously splurges on expensive lingerie and other designer clothing. Though during her hibernation the narrator’s appearance is the least of her concerns, her online “sleepshopping” suggests that “some superficial part of me was taking aim at a life of beauty and sex appeal” (86). Attempting to upkeep her status as a beautiful, wealthy, “cultured” woman, even in her sleep, indicates an unconscious longing to be attractive and desirable—to be wanted.
Clothing also symbolizes the class divide between Reva and the narrator. The narrator is unbothered, happy even, when she is fired from her job, knowing that she can survive off her inheritance and, more importantly, that it will open up her schedule for sleep. Reva, on the other hand, does not come from an old-money family and is desperate for an upper-class lifestyle. The narrator describes her friend as a “slave to vanity and status” who is “obsessed with brand names, conformity, ‘fitting in’” (9). Without a trust fund to rely on, Reva opts for knockoff designer clothing and accessories, wanting the appearance of a wealthy, worldly woman like the narrator.
In January, when the narrator hatches a plan to sleep until June with the help of Infermiterol, she gifts her entire wardrobe to Reva, hoping “her greed would unburden me of my own vanity” (256). When they say goodbye, the narrator makes her usual assumptions about Reva’s interior life, describing her as distracted and “already hatching plans, all the hunting for love and admiration she’d do with this new wardrobe […]” (257); the narrator’s portraits of others usually reflect her cynicism about humanity. However, when they meet again months later, for the last time in person, both women have changed. While Reva seems to have morphed into her ideal self, donning the narrator’s designer jewelry and clothing, the narrator is no longer interested in serving her vanity, as “I felt no longing or nostalgia for the clothes” (281).
Related Titles
By Ottessa Moshfegh
