57 pages • 1 hour read
Jill SantopoloThe Light We Lost
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Lucy Carter Maxwell
Lucy Carter Maxwell is the first-person narrator of The Light We Lost. At the beginning of the novel, Lucy is a college student in her senior year. She is young, idealistic, and unsure what she wants to do as a career. She makes light of stories she tells to her roommates that are meant more for children than adults, but then she makes a career producing children’s television shows. This shows Lucy’s habit of underplaying the things that matter most to her to accommodate the opinions of those around her. Despite this, Lucy is a highly intelligent young woman and a graduate of Columbia University with a career that matters deeply to her.
As Lucy tells her story, she initially appears to be the protagonist. She is the center of the story, the heroine caught up in a love triangle. However, as the novel progresses, an argument can be made for Lucy as the antagonist of her own story. Lucy wants to play the victim at the end of her relationship with Gabe, but in truth she did not fight to keep him in her life. She did not attempt to consider alternatives to ending their relationship. While Gabe kept a secret from her by not informing her of his decision to take a job with the Associated Press, Lucy became so overwhelmed with her anger at his secrets that she did not fight for their relationship. She allowed him to walk away more than a week before he was due to leave the country.
As their story continues, Lucy often reaches out to Gabe, even though she is involved with another man. She also answers Gabe’s calls, including one on the morning of her wedding, even though she knows she needs to let him go if she has any chance of building a happy marriage with Darren. At the same time, she continuously holds Darren up to an impossible ideal based on who she wants to believe Gabe was. It is Lucy’s choice to marry Darren and leave Gabe in the past, but she never takes responsibility for this decision. Lucy continues to love and think about Gabe while lying to everyone about it, including herself. She grows bored in her marriage, allowing her feelings for Gabe to grow even more. Lucy is always annoyed by Darren’s secrets, but she refuses to confront Darren when she suspects he is having an affair. If Lucy had not kept this secret to herself, she would not have had an intimate encounter with Gabe which produced a child. Lucy does to Darren the one thing she always complains about him doing to her, only her secret is bigger than anything Darren kept from her. Lucy’s secret could be the end of her marriage, but she justifies it because of the depth of her love for Gabe.
Gabriel Samson
Gabriel Samson is a senior at Columbia University when the novel begins. His mother is an artist and his father is a failed artist with a temper problem. As a child, Gabe watched his father belittle his mother, undermine her art, and violently abuse her. Gabe was often in a position where he had to protect his mother from his father, a fact that stole the carefree nature of childhood and left him with a lifetime belief that because of his father’s DNA, he would forever be incapable of happiness.
When they first meet, Gabe spends the day with Lucy and gives the impression of a possible romantic relationship, only to return to his former girlfriend out of a sense of responsibility. Gabe’s behavior disappoints Lucy but makes her believe he is an honest and compassionate person. When they meet again, the heat between them is instantaneous. Gabe, however, is a charming man who draws people to himself without effort. Lucy expresses jealousy when they attend a party, and she finds him alone in a forbidden space with a woman she does not know. Gabe smooths things over by seducing Lucy, setting a precedence between them that Lucy never seems to be aware of. Each time Gabe does something that is potentially hurtful, he smooths it over with charm and passion.
Gabe is the first to keep a secret in the novel. He accepts a job with the Associated Press in Iraq as a photojournalist but does not tell Lucy about it until the contracts are signed. This devastating secret effectively ends their relationship. Gabe appears to be selfish, choosing his dreams over Lucy. However, the couple spoke about their dreams earlier in their relationship, and both agreed that neither would stand before the other’s dreams. Gabe had no reason to believe Lucy would not be supportive. Instead, Lucy was angry and left Gabe with little option but to walk away.
The reader only gets snatches of Gabe after his breakup with Lucy, and most of those scenes appear when Gabe is hurting and reaches out to Lucy for love, support, and comfort. This, too, might seem selfish, but Lucy answers the phone each time, giving the impression that she is open to these connections. When Lucy seduces Gabe, and they spend an intimate day together, it is clear that Gabe never stopped loving Lucy. Gabe has been transformed by his experiences, but the part of him that loved Lucy never changed. That is evident in the fact that Gabe made Lucy his medical proxy and left his creative works to her. In Lucy’s mind, Gabe changed very little over the years, remaining the dark, brooding man she fell in love with. However, the reader cannot be completely sure that this is accurate since the entire story is seen only through Lucy’s perception of the relationship. Even Lucy admits that there are many things about Gabe’s life she does not know. The only thing that is clear is that Gabe was somewhat isolated by his lifestyle and work, and he had few people close enough to him that he felt comfortable making his medical proxy and heir.
Darren Maxwell
Darren Maxwell is slightly older than the other characters in the novel. He is a bit more settled in his career and more focused on his future than the others. When Lucy meets Darren, she is just a few months out of her relationship with Gabe. Lucy, still grieving the end of her relationship, is not in a hurry to jump into something new. Darren is more mature than most of the other characters, and therefore he recognizes the things Lucy needs in her grief and is willing to wait her out. He is kind, funny, and gentle with Lucy’s feelings. These qualities win Lucy over and lead to a relationship between her and Darren. Lucy and Darren’s relationship is a slow burn—almost the opposite of Lucy and Gabe’s relationship—but it has a foundation strong enough to build a long-lasting partnership unlike Lucy’s fiery tryst with Gabe.
Darren does not appear to grow or change in the novel, but like with Gabe, it is hard to tell if that is real or just the way Lucy perceives her husband. Darren is hardworking, but he also likes to have fun. He plans secret trips and surprises for Lucy, touching on the theme Secrets and Surprises. However, he is unaware that these secrets and surprises upset Lucy, who does not like being surprised. However, it is important to note that Lucy never really tells Darren that she disfavors these things. She allows him to continue to make these plans thinking that she likes them when she does not. One of these secrets leads to Lucy’s incorrect belief that Darren is having an affair. Darren is not the kind of man who would be unfaithful to his wife, which is illustrated by his faith in Lucy’s commitment to their marriage. It is difficult to believe that Darren, faced with the same information and situation, would respond like Lucy did.In a way, Darren is a victim in this novel. He entered into a relationship with Lucy with pure intentions and believed she was doing the same. Lucy never told Darren that she continued to have strong feelings for Gabe, even though she was honest about the many times she contacted Gabe during their marriage. There were key times, however, when Lucy did not inform Darren of her connections with Gabe, such as the phone call she received from Gabe on the morning of their wedding. While Darren kept secrets from Lucy, they were often secrets about things that were for Lucy’s benefit, such as a trip to Paris or the purchase of the house where they first met. By the novel’s end, Lucy has committed the ultimate betrayal against Darren, and she does not reveal what she plans to do about the situation. In this circumstance, Darren is the innocent victim and Lucy the villain, despite her attempts to make Darren into a villain for simply attempting to love her with the same single-minded devotion she felt for Gabe.
