Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gilead, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Life, Death, and Beauty
Christian Faith, Mystery, and Ministry
Memory, Vision, and Conviction
Estrangement and Reconciliation
Loneliness and Love
Summary
Analysis
John visited Boughton this morning. He’s in a good mood because Glory and Jack are clearing out his overgrown gardens. John chats with Boughton a little about baseball, politics, and happy memories of youth, but he can tell that what Boughton really wants is to just listen to his children’s voices, so John goes back home. His wife was worried that he’d gone out without telling her. He figures it wouldn’t be the worst thing to drop dead while he’s out enjoying himself, and that he might as well enjoy life while he’s feeling well.
It’s plain that Boughton finds joy in simply being around his children, especially Jack, with whom he’s had an unexplained estrangement. Boughton’s contentment suggests that even if there isn’t perfect understanding between people, they can still cherish one another. Meanwhile, John continues to enjoy life as much as he can with the time he has left, though it’s difficult to balance this with his wife’s worries.
Themes
John thinks of Boughton’s dour old parents and what they must be like in heaven now. He likes to think of “divine mercy giving us back to ourselves,” letting us laugh at our foolishness. He still thinks of Boughton as a vigorous young man. Boughton hasn’t preached in a decade, and John feels that, unlike his friend, he still has an errand to complete.
John regards heaven as a place where, somehow, people become what they’re meant to be, even if they didn’t live life in the most fulfilling way. As John watches Boughton decline, he feels that his friend has achieved what he’s meant to do on Earth and, for that reason, almost seems to hope that Boughton will get to experience heaven soon. On the other hand, John feels like there’s still something left for him to do.
Themes
This week John plans to preach on the story of Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis. He finds comfort in this story because it suggests that even when a child’s father or mother can’t provide, someone will. Every child is sent “into the wilderness” in some sense, and even the wilderness belongs to God. Jack Boughton came to play catch with the boy today, and both the boy and his mother seemed disappointed when Jack couldn’t stay for supper.
In this biblical story, Abraham sends Hagar and the son she’s borne him, Ishmael, into the desert on the orders of his wife Sarah. There, God looks after the cast-out woman and child. It’s pretty obvious why John would find this story comforting. It’s not a perfect parallel to his life, but he does know that after he dies, he won’t be able to provide for his son, and he has to trust God to provide for the boy and Lila instead.
Themes
Last night Jack Boughton came by and chatted with John on the porch, until John invited him to stay for supper. John has always found Jack’s “preacherly” manner disturbing—he’s had it since childhood. It almost has a touch of parody, John thinks. Over the macaroni and cheese, Jack notes that John hasn’t visited his father in a few days. John thought Jack would have been gone by this time—it’s one of his life’s greatest irritations to see Jack and Boughton together.
It becomes clear that even when he’s outwardly kind and inviting, John struggles with various grudges against Jack Boughton. These range from the trivial (he finds Jack’s resemblance to a preacher insulting) to the weighty—he seems to feel that Jack doesn’t deserve a father like Boughton. Though it’s not clear why, Jack is a big obstacle for John.
Themes
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When John was a bachelor, church ladies used to just come and go, leaving meals for him. When he got married, it was hard for people to learn that they couldn’t do that anymore. He started discouraging people once he realized that their well-meant gestures hurt his wife’s feelings.
John reflects on how his life has drastically changed. Through most of his ministry, he more or less belonged to the congregation as a whole, and there weren’t firm boundaries between his life and his congregants’. Now that he has Lila, it’s been hard to maintain boundaries around his home life.
Themes
John mentions it because it’s just so strange to find himself sitting there with Jack Boughton and his family, when not many years ago he used to sit there eating cold leftovers and talking and praying with Boughton about Jack. But what is the point in telling his son about all that? There’s nothing very unusual about Jack’s story. In fact, John sometimes wishes people understood how “worn and stale” the commonplace sins really are. Maybe then they’d lose some of their appeal.
Jack Boughton’s presence at his family dinner table is a good example of how dramatically John’s life has changed. Still, John seems hesitant to tell his son what he means by all this. He implies that Jack is guilty of unnamed sins, but that’s not unusual—as a minister, John has seen everything, and he knows that the same old stories play out over and over again. Yet, clearly, there’s some reason that Jack really bothers John.
Themes
John needs to figure out what to tell his wife about Jack. His son keeps looking at Jack like he’s Charles Lindbergh. John wonders if God is somehow specially at work in Jack returning home. He hopes there’s a point, since he would especially appreciate peace right now. But he shouldn’t complain.
There’s a humorous hint of John’s age here, as aviator Charles Lindbergh’s peak of popularity would have been in the 1920s and 1930s, not the 1950s (although his son does love airplanes and might indeed idolize Lindbergh). The bigger point, though, is that Jack is somehow disrupting the peace John had hoped for in his last days. The novel subtly hints that Jack’s presence has something to do with John’s sense of an unfinished mission in life.
Themes
