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’s father said that upon their return from the army, he walked into John’s grandfather’s church and saw a needlework tapestry hanging above the communion table. The words on it read, “The Lord Our God Is a Purifying Fire.” His father left for the Quaker meeting after seeing this banner. The use of the word “purifying” in reference to war appalled him. Over the years, the congregation dwindled, and the Methodists bought the land and burned down the decrepit building.
John flashes back to his father’s life in Kansas after the war and before John was born. The words on the tapestry sum up his father’s objections to his own father’s convictions. From his perspective, war doesn’t “purify” anything, but rather contaminates whatever it touches. The eventual burning of the church is ambiguous, too—it could be viewed as God “purifying” the church by destroying it, and John’s grandfather’s views with it.
Themes
John remembers his father saying in a sermon that he regretted going off to the Quakers while his father struggled to comfort his congregation after the war. Sometimes his grandfather’s congregation would start singing along with the Methodist camp meeting in the middle of the sermon. The smell of earth was in the air because of all the newly-dug graves. Yet people remembered those days with “tenderness.” But his father stayed away out of principle. His own father had preached war to his people because, he said, as long as there was slavery, there could be no peace.
John’s father had regrets about how he expressed his convictions to his father, even though his principles didn’t change over the years. Much as his father had abandoned the family in a time of suffering, John’s father abandoned his father’s congregation in its waning years.
Themes
John came home for lunch today to find his son playing catch with Jack Boughton. He notes that he’s failed to get his son his own baseball glove and that he’ll see to it. John finds them beautiful to watch. He remembers Louisa jumping rope in that same street and himself playing catch with Boughton under those same trees.
John seems to regard Jack playing with his son as a bit of an intrusion on their relationship—playing catch is a quintessential father-son activity, and it reminds him of what he and the boy will never get to enjoy together. Still, though, he’s touched by the memories the game of catch evokes, and by his son becoming part of Gilead’s history in this way.
Themes
John is trying to “make the best of our situation” by telling his son things he might not have told him if his upbringing had been more typical. He says it’s hard to remember what really matters “when things are taking their ordinary course,” and that these are the very things that mean the most to people. He reminisces further about the rainy day at the burned-out church with the singing women and the ashy biscuit his father gave him.
If John’s relationship with his son had proceeded more normally—if they’d had many years together—then it’s possible they never would have talked about the most meaningful things. John tries to record some of those things in his letter.
Themes
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When John broke some communion bread and fed it to his son that recent morning, he knows he was trying to give his son something of his own memory of his father feeding him a morsel of biscuit. He often wonders about the relationship between this reality and eternity. Even though grief won’t persist there, he can’t believe that earthly sorrows will become meaningless—they are such a big part of being human. Even now, he feels sorrow for his future son, who will grow up fatherless.
In John’s mind, giving his son communion was a way of sharing an old memory with the boy, even though his son couldn’t understand at the time. When he reads this letter, then, he may be able to look back on his own childhood memory in a different way. John believes that sorrow and suffering are some of the most human things—even though the pain isn’t good in itself, it etches meaning into people’s lives.
Themes
