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
When John was a young man, he married a girl, Louisa, during his last year of seminary. They’d grown up together. They moved back to Gilead so that John could take over his father’s pulpit while his parents took a sabbatical. But his wife soon died in childbirth, as did their baby, Angeline. He recalls the blessing of getting to hold Angeline for a few minutes before she died. Boughton had named and baptized her before John got home. Otherwise, they would have named her Rebecca.
John jumps from describing his childhood to his early marriage, which he hasn’t mentioned before. It turns out that John experienced family life before he had Lila and their son, but his first marriage took place many decades ago and only lasted for a short time. Death and grief have impacted John personally, not just as a minister. This is also the first the fellow minister Boughton enters the story; he and John have obviously been close, if Boughton named John’s dying baby daughter.
Themes
Last Sunday during supper at Boughton’s, John noticed his son studying Boughton’s arthritic hands. While he looks older, Boughton is actually younger than John. His daughter Glory lives with him now, her marriage having failed. John says it would be a pity if Boughton’s occasional crankiness is mainly what his son remembers. In his prime, Boughton was a gifted preacher.
Age changes people, and John wants his son to know that his childhood impressions—like Boughton’s frailty and crankiness—don’t capture the man accurately. Perhaps John is also thinking that his son might remember him as a cranky, frail old man, too.
Themes
John always wrote his sermons out word for word; there are boxes of them stored around the house, but he’s never gone back to look at them. He’s a little afraid to—maybe he’d discover that he worked so hard on them just to keep other people from bothering him. Somehow, solitude was a balm for his loneliness in those days. Writing also felt a lot like praying—it felt like being with someone, much as writing these letters feels like being with his son.
Thinking about Boughton’s preaching makes John think about his own. From the perspective of old age, John wonders about his motives when writing all those sermons. Especially during the long years of living alone, he recognizes, it’s possible that sermon-writing helped him cope with his deep loneliness.
Themes
John’s wife is proud of his hours spent writing and of his books. She was the one who pointed out the sheer number of sermons and prayers John has written—probably coming out to around 67,500 pages, if you add up 50 sermons a year for 45 years. And if 300 pages make a volume, then that would add up to 225 books, which “puts [him] up there with Augustine and Calvin.” John notes that he did almost all his writing “in the deepest hope and conviction,” seeking to be truthful, and that was wonderful. He’s even grateful for the lonely years, even though looking back, they seem “like a long, bitter prayer.” His wife walked into church in the middle of that prayer.
As a Protestant minister, John would have been responsible for preaching a sermon to his congregation weekly; the sermon would often be the high point of the worship service, as John explained the week’s designated Bible readings and applied them to congregants’ lives. By likening himself to Augustine and Calvin (revered theologians of the fifth and sixteenth centuries, respectively), John is being a bit tongue-in-cheek. He doesn’t mean that he’s on the same intellectual level as these great figures but makes the wry observation that his volume of written output might rival their published writings. He also acknowledges that even if his motivations were mixed during his lonely years, he also believed what he preached, and he regards the ability to preach truthfully as a privilege.
Themes
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John reflects on the peace of an ordinary Sunday, “like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain,” full of quiet life. You just need to avoid trampling on it. That particular day was especially quiet, with much-needed rain falling on the roof and windows of the church. Though when his future wife walked in, he worried that the very ordinariness might seem dull to her.
Traditionally, Protestants like John would regard Sunday, or the Sabbath, as a day set aside for worship and quiet, restful activities instead of work. This is reflected in John’s language about a watered garden filled with the promise of life. Throughout the novel, he associates water with God’s love, which is given freely. Thus it’s especially appropriate that it rained on the day he met Lila, whom he sees as an expression of God’s love.
Themes
If Rebecca had lived, she would be 51 now, 10 years older than his wife is now. John used to think about what it would be like if Rebecca suddenly walked into the church. He imagined her coming back from a place where “everything is known,” and how paltry his hopes and mere speculations might sound to her by comparison. He believes that mindset prepared him for what it was like when his future wife walked in. It seemed like she didn’t really belong there, and yet she belonged there more than any of the rest of them did.
This passage makes it clear just how much younger Lila is than John. Though readers could guess that Lila was significantly younger because she has a young son, it’s now clear that at 41, Lila is about 35 years younger than John. But in this passage, John’s focus is on the wonder of preaching to Lila for the first time. If his daughter Rebecca could come to church from heaven, she’d presumably know everything he was preaching about already. Lila, too, seemed like an outsider: even though she wasn’t a churchgoer, she seemed to have wisdom that John didn’t, and it made him self-conscious.
Themes
John’s future wife’s seriousness seemed almost like anger. He remembers how closely she watched as he baptized two babies that day. He noted her expression of “stern amazement” afterward. Six months later, he baptized her, and she cried. He felt like asking her what it all meant. He never doubted that baptisms were meaningful, but he always felt “outside the mystery of it” somehow.
When Lila first came to church and later got baptized herself, she seemed to take everything with life-or-death seriousness. Unlike the rest of the congregation, everything she saw and experienced was new, not a familiar ritual she could take somewhat for granted. John shows his characteristic humility in that he doesn’t presume to understand everything about his faith or ministry, even after decades of baptizing people. Even a brand-new Christian like Lila, he suggests, might grasp spiritual truths that are beyond his reach.
Themes
