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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 hears his wife coaxing his son to sleep in the next room. He can’t make out the words but thinks his wife’s singing voice is beautiful. She just laughs when he tells her that. He reflects that it’s hard to tell what’s beautiful anymore. He remembers seeing two “decent rascally young fellows” smoking and laughing in the sunshine the other day, and thinking the sight was beautiful. It made him wonder where laughter comes from, and what it gets out of a person’s system—like crying, you have to laugh until you’re done.
Thinking about his unexpected marriage and fatherhood draws John’s attention to his wife’s voice in the next room, and from thinking about her beautiful voice, he begins to reflect on beauty in general—something he does a lot throughout the novel. By saying that it’s hard to tell what’s beautiful anymore, John implies that in his old age, he sees beauty in places where he might not have recognized it before. He even sees it in young men joking around and enjoying life. John muses that laughter is cathartic in some way, like crying. Though he doesn’t completely understand the nature of laughter, John finds it beautiful. It seems that the more mystery John sees in life, the more beauty he finds, too.
Themes
John reflects that the young men quieted down when they saw him walking by, and that he wished, as on other occasions, that he could tell them he enjoys a good joke. But he knows from experience that people prefer that ministers stay “a little bit apart.” It’s the strangest thing about his life as a minister—the way people change the subject when you’re around. And yet, in private, people reveal incredible things. It goes to show that there’s a lot beneath life’s surface—“malice and dread and […] so much loneliness.”
John observes that he enjoys a good laugh as much as anyone, but that people generally put ministers on a pedestal, as if they’re untouched by everyday pleasures like humor. Though John doesn’t agree with that view, he also implies that this sense of separation allows people to unburden themselves to ministers about their struggles and pain. This glimpse beneath the surface of life—and of other people—becomes a key theme in John’s ministry.
Themes
John’s grandfather on his mother’s side was a preacher, and his father’s father and grandfather, too. Such a life came naturally to them, and they were good people. But John regrets that he’s failed to learn from them to control his temper. He warns his son to watch for the same tendency in himself, because anger is terribly destructive.
John’s consideration of ministry in general leads him to think about his family’s legacy in that profession. But even though he’s respectful of his forebears, John doesn’t shrink from naming their faults, either—like anger. This balanced tone establishes how John will talk about his family throughout the novel. Notably, he also seems more concerned about his son’s moral character than whether his son follows his ancestors’ footsteps to become a minister, too.
Themes
John says he’s going to be candid now. He doesn’t mean his father any disrespect, and he knows his father always acted according to his principles. But somehow his way of acting on his principles could be disappointing to people. And John knows for a fact that he disappointed his father, too. Yet they both meant well by each other. He observes that “you can know a thing to death and be […] completely ignorant of it.”
When talking about loved ones, John often alludes to events he explains only gradually in the course of writing to his son, so readers don’t necessarily have all the information they would need to follow his train of thought. Here, for instance, John indicates that his father was a man of principle whom he admired. But at the same time, he implies that for all their good intentions, the two had a strained relationship. This tension between personal conviction and family will be explored throughout the book. With his remark about ignorance, John further suggests that just knowing something or someone well—even a close family member—doesn’t mean you truly understand them.
Themes
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John’s point in saying this is that a regretful person will assume you’re angry at them, even if you’re just quietly going about your life. They can make you doubt yourself, which is a waste of time. John regrets not figuring this out earlier in life. Just thinking about it now makes him feel irritated, which he realizes is a form of anger.
Again, John alludes to people and situations without yet explaining them. Essentially, though, he says that people often project their own regrets onto others, which can damage relationships. He also implies that such relational tension is at the root of the angry tendency he mentioned earlier.
Themes
John observes that a benefit of a religious vocation is that it helps one concentrate, to understand one’s obligations and what one can ignore. This is a big part of whatever wisdom he has to offer. He notes that his son has blessed their home for almost seven years, late in John’s life. It happened too late for John to do anything to provide for his son and his wife. He thinks and prays about this a lot.
John shifts back to more general observations about his work as a minister. Basically, he says that a perk of the role is that it helps a person differentiate between what’s truly important and what isn’t. He also suggests that his wife and son are among the most important obligations in his life—but that because they entered his life so unexpectedly late, he didn’t prepare for them. Often, it seems, the biggest blessings in life appear in this surprising way.
Themes
