A Little Life: Part 2: The Postman: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Jude’s impulse to stock up on essentials is another hint about his past. Maybe he didn’t have much growing up, and so now he feels a compulsion to hoard the things he wasn’t fortunate enough to have as a child. It’s also important to note how ashamed Jude is of this habit, and how it makes him different from others. At some point in his life, people—the monks, perhaps—taught Jude that being different is bad. And that Jude carries this lesson with him years later, as an adult, shows how these early experiences have continued to affect him throughout his life.

Jude’s reasons for not wanting to run into his employers are unclear, but it further reinforces his secrecy and impulse to keep his private life from others.

Felix’s early disillusionment with life, on the one hand, is rather stereotypical of your average moody, pubescent pre-teen. It also reinforces the book’s overall pessimistic attitude toward life, which holds that human suffering (of which loneliness is one example) is the default state.

Jude sees happiness as rare and fleeting, and unhappiness as the default state. This reinforces the book’s broader insistence that human suffering is a fundamental aspect of life.

Jude continues to reveal more aspects of his character. In addition to being intelligent and ambitious and orphaned, he’s also apparently an accomplished musician. It’s curious that someone with so any talents and accomplishments should be so private and seemingly self-effacing. Jude is impressive, but he seems not to know it—or, perhaps, he’s ashamed of the aspects of his personality that mark him as exceptional or different than most people.

Jude’s pessimistic take on friendship gets at the arbitrary and often cruel nature of life. Jude believes everything that happens in life is totally random: good things sometimes happen to bad people, and tragedies sometimes strike good people. Jude’s contemplations further hint at an unhappy childhood that has enlightened him to the depressing realities of life’s fundamental unfairness. 

Jude has a lot of practical and applied knowledge, but he considers much of it useless because it doesn’t help him connect with his peers. This shows how Jude desperately wants to fit in and find acceptance. This backs up his earlier comment about being taught to look down on characteristics that make him different from others. It also suggests a deep-seated self-hatred. This is concerning and, once more, suggests that Jude’s still-mysterious past was likely not so happy. 

This passage offers further evidence of Jude’s self-hatred. It’s also curious that Jude considers it “a necessity and a protection” not to discuss his past with others. Perhaps there is something traumatic that occurred in his past that he is repressing, or perhaps he feels ashamed of his past—or maybe both are true.

Jude doesn’t like being “post” everything because it just confirms his fear that he exists totally outside of any community. It alienates him from others and leaves him feeling lost in the world. Despite all Jude’s professional and personal successes—his promising law career, his clear mastery of many practical and applied skills, his handful of lifelong, very close friends—he's totally unsatisfied with life and self-hating.

That Willem is the friend Jude trusts most reaffirms their close friendship. They have a special bond Jude doesn’t have with the others. That Jude only trusts one person—and can’t even bring himself to confide in that person—further supports the idea that Jude’s past was far from ideal, and, perhaps, that something sinister happened to him long ago. He must have some reason to consider himself abnormal.

JB’s frank question about Jude’s legs shows that he’s always been a little rude and unfiltered. In this way, he’s quite unlike Jude, who is almost pathologically secretive and careful about what he shares with and asks of others. This scene also shows why Jude is closest to Willem: because Willem respects Jude’s boundaries, understanding that Jude’s past is only their business if Jude decides it’s their business.

Jude’s embarrassment here shows how uncomfortable he is accepting others’ support and comfort. This suggests, perhaps, that he's been raised to feel that he is undeserving of respect or compassion. Willem’s silence suggests that he suspects there’s more to Jude’s story than Jude has just revealed—but that he’s accepted that Jude has no obligation to tell them anything he'd rather keep secret. Finally, that Jude craves “an opportunity for reinvention” adds additional fuel to the theory that Jude has had a bad (and maybe even traumatic) past that he wishes he could escape from. The very fact that what happened to his legs wasn’t an accident—that he or someone else hurt him in such an extreme way—reaffirms this theory.

By referring to whatever caused Jude’s physical disability as an “injury” rather than an “accident,” as Jude had told his friends, Willem reveals his suspicion that what happened to Jude when he was 15 was no accident. Again, it’s clear that Willem is more attuned to or respectful of Jude’s feelings than the others.

That Jude had a social worker involved in his childhood is further evidence of a childhood rife with turmoil or, at least, instability. The fact that Ana is the only person Jude feels hasn’t betrayed him helps explain the secretive, discerning persona he’s adopted as an adult. He doesn’t open up to a lot of people because he’s learned, over time, that he cannot trust anyone. Though Jude’s injuries were severe, he grew up with people telling him that his life would improve—even if his condition never fully returned to what it was before his injury. But has Jude’s life met these optimistic expectations? He still seems to be in a lot of pain, and he still seems highly reluctant to trust anybody. 

This passage presents more clues about Jude’s mysterious past. Ana angrily decides that the men who injured Jude should go to hell, and this suggests that there are specific people responsible for the chronic pain he still deals with as an adult. Finally, Ana’s insistence that Jude learn to talk about what happened to him underscores how important confronting one’s traumas are to healing. Yet, as an adult, Jude remains secretive about his past, and this suggests that he has yet to work through his childhood trauma—and as a result, this trauma continues to haunt him as an adult.  

In this scene, the novel finally reveals the name of the person who’s (possibly) responsible for Jude’s injuries: Dr. Traylor. The novel doesn’t specify whether Dr. Traylor is a medical doctor or a professor of some kind, but if he's a medical doctor, this helps explain why, as an adult, Jude isn’t able to trust anyone besides his close friend, Andy, to treat his many ills. This scene also helps establish what an important presence Ana was in Jude’s life, as well as the essential role she played in his recovery. At one point in his life, at least, Jude was able to be honest with someone and let her help him. This leaves readers to wonder what happened after Jude’s time with Ana that caused him to become so guarded.     

The novel reveals another name of one of Jude’s possible aggressors here—Brother Luke. It also seems that for all Brother Luke did to hurt Jude, he also ensured that he received a good education. The possibility that someone from Jude’s past simultaneously helped and hurt him helps explain some of the trust issues Jude seems to have as an adult. He’s learned to be wary around people who claim to be his friend or protector, since he’s seen how those people are also capable of betraying him. 

Jude is, to some degree, being kind to Ana when he attributes his college acceptance to her. But this passage also provides additional evidence of Jude’s inability to take credit for his accomplishments and recognize his good qualities. Ana’s declining health and the detail that she used to smoke suggests that she’s ill with something serious, perhaps lung cancer. Jude, in Ana, has finally found some happiness and support after (what seems like) a childhood filled with unhappiness and instability. And now Ana is gravely ill. Jude just can’t catch a break. 

Ana’s continual efforts to urge Jude to talk about his past underscores how vital confronting the things that happened to him are to his recovery and mental wellness. And again, the fact that Jude clearly hasn’t found a way to talk about the past, combined with his well-established habit of self-harm, suggests that he hasn’t worked through his past and is still hurting because of it.

In Jude’s failure to stay in touch with the Douglasses, readers can already see the major effect Ana’s death has had on him. Jude finally found someone who cared about him, and whom he felt comfortable enough to confide in—and then, in dying, she abandoned him. Perhaps this difficult experience taught Jude not to rely on others for support, and that learning this lesson has contributed to his secrecy and unwillingness to confide in even his closest friends. 

In throwing away Leslie’s letter, Jude symbolically does the exact opposite of what Ana had advised him to do: he attempts to cope with his past by rejecting it rather than confronting it. And as the secrecy and self-harm Jude exhibits as an adult suggests, this decision has been majorly destructive to his mental wellness. Ana wanted Jude to confront his past and begin to heal, and he’s done neither of these things. And as a result, his adulthood is filled with suffering and strife.  

The novel has previously mentioned Harold in passing as a friend with whom Jude typically spends Thanksgivings. Here it reveals the origins of that friendship: Harold was Jude’s law professor. Apparently, Harold liked Jude enough to recommend him for an important clerkship, and also to continue their relationship even after Jude graduated from law school. This flashback also reinforces just how drastically Jude’s accomplishments and likability clash with his low self-esteem. Jude continues to succeed and find people who think he’s great, yet he fails to think positively about himself. He can’t even accept Harold’s compliment.  

Jude’s translation of the Mahler lied (song) is important. The usual translation of this line is “I am lost to the world.” In translating the line to read “I have become” lost to the world, Jude implicitly calls on the ways his childhood trauma have caused him to “become lost to the world” and has otherwise harmed him. Singing the song before Sullivan allows Jude to confront the ways his past has harmed him—even if Sullivan remains unaware of the subliminal meaning behind Jude’s words. This scene suggests, perhaps, that Jude is making some headway in confronting his childhood trauma and learning to heal.   

Harold’s affection for Jude shines through in this generous action. It’s almost like he’s trying to act as orphaned Jude’s parent, performing a ceremonial ritual of taking him shopping for his first big job. It's curious—and concerning—that Marco’s touch causes Jude to “flinch[] reflexively.” Jude’s reaction suggests, perhaps, that he has some experience with physical or sexual abuse. This would certainly fit with what little readers know of Jude’s unstable, troubled, and traumatic past.

Jude wants to trust that Harold’s friendly and caring gestures are genuine, yet whatever happened between Jude and Brother Jude has left Jude wary of people who seem, on the surface, to care about him. It’s clear that Jude has been let down—if not outright physically or emotionally harmed—by enough people to condition him not to trust anyone. Jude’s upsetting remark about grown men only wanting him for one reason further supports the idea that Jude was sexually abused as a child.

The idea that there’s a difference “between what is fair and what is necessary” resonates with the book’s view of suffering. The book asserts that suffering is a fundamental part of human life, and that everyone suffers—even people who don't “deserve” it, such as Jude. Maybe this is why Harold’s speech moves him—because he’s experienced, firsthand, just how unfair life can be.

Jude, once more, demonstrates his inability to own his skills and accept praise. As new details about Jude’s childhood come to light, it becomes increasingly clear that Jude was raised by people who abused him and taught him to hate and be ashamed of himself. And Jude’s failure to tell Harold that it was he who executed the flawlessly decorated bacteria cookies is yet another example of the minute ways that he has carried the side effects of this abuse into his adult life.  

This passage offers an additional clue into Jude’s childhood: he grew up in South Dakota and Montana. Of course, given how secretive Jude is about his past, the reader should take even this vague detail with a grain of salt. When Harold calls Jude out on changing the subject, his behavior mirrors JB’s and Malcolm’s in Jude’s memory from his college days, where JB asked Jude to come clean about his injury, and Malcolm told Jude it was hurtful not to share personal details with them. This reveals how Jude’s secrecy—a side effect of the likely abuse he endured as a child—affects not only his self-esteem, but also his friendships.

What Jude sees as nosiness, Harold sees as a totally normal part of friendship. Harold’s repeated attempts to pry into Jude’s past reveal a bit about Harold’s philosophy of friendship: he feels that as friends become closer, they naturally become more willing to confide in each other. Essentially, Harold proposes that time and effort can lessen the distance that separates one person from another. Harold believes in a narrative of healing. He doesn’t even entertain the idea that he is incapable of healing Jude—that Jude might never become comfortable enough with Harold to divulge all the details of his past.

Pure math offers the opportunity to construct truth and reality, something Jude wants to do in his own life but cannot. He cannot erase his traumatic past from his history—it’s always there, and he's constantly finding new ways that it negatively affects his present life, and the person he's become.

Not only does Jude’s traumatic past affect him emotionally, but it also influences more practical aspects of his life. His pathological need to protect himself (though from what remains unclear at this point in the novel) influences his career choices. He might have become a musician, perhaps, but Jude’s need to protect himself—legally and financially—prevents him from pursuing things he’s passionate about in favor of things that will help him.

These scene offers additional evidence of the last effects of Jude’s childhood trauma. He seems constantly afraid that people are testing him—that he must prove his worth. Jude’s childhood trauma seems to have taught him that he has to earn people’s love and respect—that it’s not something he’s automatically given. Jude’s interest in “succinct” and simple proofs perhaps reflects the way he wishes his life could be: he wants his life to be as logical and clear-cut as “a beautiful ruling,” but it’s really been as rambling and ugly as Fermat’s last theorem.

Jude resists Harold and Julia’s efforts to get closer to him, but it’s not because he doesn’t want to be close to him. Jude’s fantasy where Harold and Julia are his parents reveals that Jude craves a loving, familial relationship with Harold and Julia—he just doesn’t know how to make himself vulnerable in front of them (or anyone, for that matter).

Jude’s childhood trauma taught him that it’s bad to be different, but it’s this same trauma that has made him different in the first place. Seeing how effortlessly his friends connect with Harold only magnifies Jude’s own sense of self-hatred and inadequacy. It’s unclear which of Jude’s friends told Harold to stop asking so many questions, but Willem seems a possible candidate, given his history of looking after Jude and being especially sensitive to Jude’s needs and comfort level. 

In Harold and Julia, Jude has found friends who refuse to abandon him. Perhaps this positive friendship will teach Jude that he is worthy: that he doesn’t have to prove his worth, and that people will remain in his life simply because they love and care about him. Jude hasn’t said much about “the home” he was sent to live in the summer before college, but if it was full of “hostility,” it seems likely that living there wasn’t much better than any of his previous living arrangements. At Jude’s new job, it’s advantageous to have something that sets oneself apart from the others. Yet, this hasn’t made Jude of the novel’s present feel any better about the ways his life has been so different from others’ lives. Jude’s repeated failure to see himself in a positive light shows just how intensely his childhood trauma continues to haunt his adult life.

Jude’s fear that Harold will no longer want to associate with him if he finds out about Jude’s past adds another layer of mystery to this already mysterious protagonist. Is Jude’s self-hatred unfairly influencing his logic? Or did he really do something so shameful that others would want to distance themselves from him if they knew about it? For now, this question remains unanswered. 

Harold and Julia’s thoughtful gesture to relocate the guest bedroom downstairs shows that Jude has no shortage of friends willing to accommodate his disability—and to do so discreetly, so Jude doesn’t feel uncomfortable about needing extra help. And yet, Jude remains self-conscious about his disability into the present. This suggests that friendship and solidarity aren’t enough to make Jude accept his disability.

This passage mirrors Jude’s negative reaction to being touched by the man during his suit fitting years before. It’s becoming increasingly likely that Jude was physically or sexually abused as a child, and this is why he recoiled from the customer service employee then, and from Harold’s touch now. This scene also offers some insight into Harold’s past. He has a son, Jacob, but Jacob hasn’t appeared or been mentioned before now. This might imply that Jacob is no longer in Harold’s life—perhaps he is estranged or even deceased. 

Jude is sorry about everything, but he seems especially sorry about breaking the mug. This serves as additional evidence that something happened to Harold’s son—perhaps he has died. Harold’s kind note to Jude shows how deeply Harold cares about Jude. It also shows that his affection is unconditional. Jude needn’t prove himself to Harold, nor should he worry that Harold will abandon him if Jude disappoints him. He loves Jude for who he is—not for what Jude can do for him. Harold’s sweet suggestion that “life arranges itself to compensate for your loss” imagines a world where misfortune and fortune balance each other out. But in Jude’s own life, this has hardly been the case: misfortune has followed misfortune, with very few breaks in between. Jude’s life now seems to be on the upswing, but, given his history, who knows how long this will last.

Symbolically, Andy’s bad news about Jude’s injury dispels the notion that all ailments—whether psychological or physical—are fixable if one only tries hard enough. Jude’s injury proves that some wounds cut too deeply to recover from, and some people remain broken (in Jude’s mind—people with disabilities are not broken), and that suffering is inevitable.

Jude appreciates Andy’s “unflappability” because it minimizes the severity of Jude’s injuries—the parts of himself that he hates for making him so noticeably different from the rest of the world. Andy doesn’t sugarcoat Jude’s condition, nor is he annoyingly curious about it. He simply accepts Jude—imperfect and differently abled as he is. And Andy’s status as a doctor also allows him to do things that would’ve infuriated Jude if his other friends had done them (pounding on Jude’s door when Jude misses an appointment), since Andy does these things out of a professional, rather than a personal, obligation.

Andy and Jude get into a fight now because so much of the  comfort Jude found in their relationship rested on the reassurance that Andy wouldn’t pry into Jude’s past. And now that Andy has pried, Jude feels as though yet another person he thought he could trust has betrayed him. This incident likely contributed to Jude’s lingering trust issues—not that it’s unreasonable of Andy to express concern following Jude’s “botched suicide attempt” the evening before the Lispenard Street party.

As a doctor, Andy has an obligation to ensure that he acts on any suspicion that Jude will harm himself. But Andy is talking to Jude as his friend now, not as his doctor, and he’s warning Jude that it’s Jude’s secrecy and inability to trust others that will drive people away—not the underlying, unresolved issues that have caused Jude to act this way in the first place.

Jude is well aware of the fact that his situation eludes Andy’s (and many people’s, for the matter) assumption that people can and should eliminate all suffering. Also note that Jude explicitly states his belief that he deserved all the bad things that happened to him. If Jude was a victim of child abuse, this, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth. But the reader should be mindful of interpreting Jude’s memories of his past through his biased lens. 

In addition to trust issues and cutting, Jude has also developed another negative coping mechanism (hitting himself) to deal with his unresolved trauma. It’s become gradually clearer just how greatly Jude’s past negatively affects his quality of life in the present and prevents him from healing.

In comparing Jude’s leg wounds to something out of a horror movie, the narrative emphasizes how Jude’s injuries—self-inflicted and otherwise—make him feel alienated and different from everyone else. He sees himself as a monster or a mutant, rather than a normal person who just unfairly happened to become the victim of unspeakable violence and (likely) abuse.

Note that this guide is comparatively sparing in its description of Jude’s various injuries. The book, by contrast, doesn’t hold back in its descriptions of Jude’s injuries, scars, and the violence he inflicts upon himself. Readers may find it almost painful to read about all that Jude goes through. But the effect of this is that the reader can put themselves in Jude’s shoes and better comprehend all the suffering that Jude endures throughout his life.

The novel jumps backward and forward in time, and yet the one element that remains constant across all these timelines is Jude’s suffering. Whether he’s an adolescent, a college student, or a successful lawyer, Jude’s injuries and chronic pain affect his life in uncontrollable and intense ways. Perhaps some of Jude’s trust issues stem from the reality that he can’t even trust his own body not to “betray[]” him. This troubling scene also illuminates Jude’s stance on the worthiness of his life. The novel has already established that Jude has extremely low self-esteem, but here, in suggesting that it’s not worth it to continue “to repair something unfixable,” he seems to imply that he believes that his life is not worth living. 

Jude recognizes that his decision to run to Willem for help instead of waiting to succumb to his injuries means something; at least on a subconscious level, Jude feels that life is worth living, and that there’s still hope his circumstances may improve, however awful things are now. Jude’s longing to return to the time just after his injury (so, when he was 16 and about to start college) suggests that, for at least the past decade, Jude’s condition—physical and emotional—hasn’t much improved. 

In describing how the monks “had created [Jude’s past] for [Jude,]” the narrative shows the degree to which Jude’s history, identity, and self-worth have been shaped by others rather than by himself. This further expounds on the reality that all of Jude’s self-hatred, shame and negative feelings about himself are the consequence of his unresolved childhood trauma. 

The monks all offer competing “theories” of how Jude came to live at the monastery, but what they all have in common is that it’s his own fault: that it had to do with him being deficient in some way, whether it be his unknown ethnicity or health, or his being unwanted, or his being fundamentally bad. This shows the reader how Jude came to think so poorly of himself: he was taught from a young age to see himself as worthless and burdensome.

Not only does Jude learn from a young age that he is worthless, but he also learns that he isn’t entitled to have things the way other people are. The novel also shows how, in time, this lesson teaches Jude not to feel entitled to less tangible things, too, like happiness or friendship.

Houses, apartments, and other dwellings symbolize Jude’s desire for comfort and security. Throughout his life, Jude will come to see the places he lives as offering him the stability he can’t get from the people in his life. So, knowing this, it seems likely that the greenhouse might become an important and comforting place for Jude. It should certainly raise a red flag that Brother Luke lost all his money in some mysterious way. Was he, perhaps, involved in some kind of illegal activity? Readers already know that Brother Luke, despite being young Jude’s favorite monk, turns out to hurt Jude in some way, so suspicion is warranted. Finally, Jude’s stealing shows how destructive trauma and abuse (and, at the very least, negligence) can be when a person doesn’t have the means to work through these harmful issues. Jude steals, perhaps, because he lacks any other way to process his dire circumstances.

Jude’s inability to say exactly what Father Gabriel did to him—he says the monk “examine[d] inside him for any contraband,” which suggests that the monk touched Jude inappropriately—shows how traumatic the experience was for Jude. Note too how Father Gabriel justifies abusing Jude by framing sexual abuse as a search for contraband—this justification may contribute to Jude’s belief that he deserves the bad things that happen to him. This section of the book is Jude’s memory of his childhood. So, the narrative comes from Jude’s adult perspective. For Jude to remain unable to explicitly reflect on his sexual abuse so many years later shows that not only is Jude unable to discuss his past with others, but he’s also unable to think about it himself.  In addition, this scene seems to reveal, finally, how Jude got the starburst-shaped scar JB describes in the photo of Jude he wishes to paint: it’s from Father Gabriel’s punishment.

Jude earlier mentioned having acquired a “tic” of hitting himself years before, and now we see how this “tic” came to be. The self-harm itself seems to be a coping mechanism Jude develops in response to the priests’ “examinations,” or sexual abuse. Inflicting pain upon himself allows Jude to regain some of the agency that the priests’ abuse has taken from him.

Already, it’s clear that the monks’ sexual abuse has had devastating consequences on Jude’s sense of self-worth. He feels ashamed that Brother Luke has seen him enduring the sexual abuse, which implies that Jude feels he is responsible for the abuse, a sentiment he carries into adulthood. Destroying Brother Luke’s daffodils further proves how ill-equipped Jude is to process his abuse on his own. He destroys the daffodils for the same reason he harms himself, perhaps: he has no control over the shame he feels about the monks’ abuse, so he destroys the flowers in order to have an active hand in his feelings of shame.

Jude seems to want to be punished—or at least, to be able to identify a clear cause (cutting the daffodils) for his punishment. Again, acting out gives Jude some semblance of agency: he’ll be beaten regardless, but when he misbehaves, he at least knows that he’s brought it upon himself. There’s a clearer cause-effect relationship, his misery seems more deserved, and his life seems fairer.

Brother Luke’s action totally upends Jude’s expectations. He expected the monk to punish him, and yet Brother Luke has responded to Jude with kindness and compassion. But Jude’s internalized shame and self-hatred are so great, even at this young age, that he responds to the merciful gesture not with gratitude, but with feelings of shame and unworthiness. 

Jude so often deals with the hurt and abuse his young mind can’t begin to process through misbehavior and self-harm. But with Brother Luke, now, he expresses his emotions in a genuine and unfiltered manner, crying all the sadness and suffering he typically keeps bottled up inside. Though this seems like a positive thing on the surface, adult Jude’s ominous remark about everything going wrong from this point forward suggests otherwise.

Jude’s inability to cry as an adult shows how whatever happened between him and Brother Luke had a lasting impact on his psychological health. As a child, Jude cried in front of someone he trusted—and this was met only with disappointment and, perhaps, betrayal. So, this helps explain how as an adult, Jude refrains from crying or showing too much vulnerability around others. Even in his apartment, which should be a safe refuge for him, he cannot bring himself to appear vulnerable.