76 pages • 2 hours read
Kim EdwardsThe Memory Keeper's Daughter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Dichotomy of Light
Throughout the novel, many of the characters—with the exception of the silenced minor characters, such as Phoebe and Bree—exist in a constant state of conflict in which they are seemingly pulled in two opposing yet integrally connected forces. This conflict is especially evident in the seeming war between darkness and light, which exists both in the physical sense and in the psycho-emotional sense for these characters. When Norah considers the sacred nature of maternity, “she was startled by both the darkness and the beauty all around: a small oblong of light” (52). Although Norah feels as though there is a war between the psychosomatic ramifications of light and darkness, the reality is that light cannot exist without darkness, and vice versa. In this way, the two are integrally connected to one another and actually require the other to exist. Although they appear to be dichotomous, the two forces should more appropriately be labeled as bifurcated as they both must coincide in a kind of symbiotic relationship. This symbiosis becomes more readily apparent when light is linked to life.
The novel presents light as being inextricably linked to life in cliché symbolism. When David reflects on the death of his sister, June, he struggles with the interplay of light and darkness that occurs within life: “He wanted his life to be his own, unencumbered by this shadow, this loss” (121). David likens grief to a kind of shadow which he desires his life to be free of; however, his life is connected to the shadow cast by his sister’s death. He cannot escape this grief, suggesting that there are larger forces of universal balance at work within each person’s life. The author constructs light as also holding the weight of grief, creating light as a force with chimerical properties of happiness and sadness. In this way, light again reflects the nature of people’s lives, in which happiness cannot be extricated from sadness; if a person was to never experience grief, the author suggests that one would not understand happiness, either.
As part of its chimerical properties, light also can show things that the character does not wish to see, in this way reminding a character of the inherent unhappiness of light. When Caroline visits the institution, she notices“the cold light fell through the window” (29). Light can be just as unforgiving and cold as it is warming and affirming, as light shows people and places, like the institution, for what they really are in often unflattering ways. In this way, light becomes synonymous with the absolute truth of life, as evidenced in the balance between happiness and grief. The author similarly associates light with the past and the future, demonstrating its simultaneous ability to erase the conflict and grief of the past while illuminating a path for the future, such as when Norah uses fire to burn David’s photographs.
The Importance of Sight
Sight represents the most important sense evident within the novel. Most aspects are considered based on their appearance, including people. Several of the characters, including David, Caroline, and to some extent even Phoebe, fall in love at first sight, demonstrating the relatively shallow nature of love within the novel. In Caroline’s memory where David wakes up to find her staring at him, she believes “[f]or now he must know, now he would see her as she saw him” (28). The mere sight of another person, or in this case, the meta-sight of seeing another person watching you, is enough for Caroline to believe that David must surely love her, primarily because he saw how much she loves him. Here, sight is associated not only with love itself but also with the knowledge of love, thereby transcending pure emotion to reach an intellectual level as well. The author conflates sight with knowledge and love, suggesting that the three are inextricable from one another.
However, Caroline eventually recognizes the folly of this conflation when she realizes that David knows nothing about her at all. When she meets David at his art show, Caroline realizes that she “had kept alive the silly romantic notion that somehow David Henry had once known her as no one else ever could. But it was not true. He had never even glimpsed her” (251-252). Even though Caroline realizes the problems associated with the conflation between sight, knowledge, and love, she still uses the same words in order to demonstrate how David fails to connect these three ideas. In effect, Caroline uses the conflation of these ideas in order to demonstrate their fallacy, at least when it comes to David’s feelings towards her. Increasingly important becomes the emphasis on the male gaze in order for this conflation to be alleged as true. That is, Caroline is concerned not with how she sees herself, but rather whether and David sees—or fails to see—her, forcing the readers to acknowledge that the sight discussed is an undoubtedly male perspective.
Indeed, love itself—and thereby the knowledge of the person that accompanies it—is demonstrated as inextricable from the male gaze. The sight discussed within the novel is almost exclusively male in origin; the only time female perspective is discussed is in direct relation to this male gaze. For example, when Norah looks at David’s photographs, she questions his perspective: “Which of those selves did David see? Or was it another woman entirely who slept beside him every night? Herself, yes, but not as she would ever see herself” (137). Throughout the novel, women are constantly concerned with how they are seen, often realizing that they have not been seen at all. In this way, personal attachment and even knowledge of another person or empathy seems to stem—at least for females—from appearance, recreating the female experience as one exclusively based on sight and looks. This construction of female perspective is problematic for a number of reasons; for example, it equates women with shallowness and limits femininity to a surface-level identity, whereas masculinity or the male experience is allowed to be much deeper—hence David’s alleged mystery. Similarly, David’s primary focus throughout the novel is to show people how he sees things, that is, to impress his perspective and sight upon the world via his photography. Within this context then, the women are the passive objects being seen from the exclusively male perspective.
The Interconnectivity of Human Life and Experience
Many aspects of the novel—such as the disparate symbols and motifs—are conflated to demonstrate the interconnectivity of these characters’ lives. When Norah encounters the wasps that she has set out to eradicate before the party, she realizes how they resemble both the angry students protesting the war and her own anger at David: “Some wasps landed on the windowsill, their delicate wings moving lightly. Swarming, angry—they made her think of the students she had seen that morning; they made her think of herself” (135). Here, readers witness how interconnected Norah feels to her environment, specifically as a result of the tension she feels.
Interestingly enough, this interconnectivity seems to be easily accessible to the female characters within the novel while the male characters—notably David—continuously strives to find this connection to other people. Although David sees this interconnectivity as an overwhelmingly positive attribute, he fails to see the detrimental effects of these constant connections, such as David and Norah’s refusal to dissolve an unhealthy marriage:“Their lost daughter still hovered between them; their lives had shaped themselves around her absence. Norah wondered, at times, if that loss was the main thing holding them together” (177-78). Part of what connects David and Norah is the shared past grief of losing their daughter. However, Norah does not realize that this is also what keeps them apart. In this way, the nature of David and Norah’s grief vacillates between holding their marriage together and pushing them further apart. Therefore, much of the tension within their marriage can be thought to stem not only from David’s secrecy but also from the slippage in perception of their interconnectivity. For David and Norah, this interconnectivity is therefore a source of tension instead of a source of healing, which is what David believes human connection to be.
