Religion and Family Theme Analysis

Surfacing represents religion as a psychological phenomenon derived from family dynamics: essentially, it shows how children derive their ideas about God or gods from their parents, who appear all-powerful and undying to their children. If the children are brought up in a religious tradition like Christianity, the novel suggests that they can transfer their natural, childish beliefs about their parents’ power and immortality from their human parents to a divine figure like God. This transfer, the novel suggests, can make losing one’s parents easier, as children then have another parent figure—God—present in their lives after their parents’ passing. If children are not brought up in a religious tradition, on the other hand, the novel shows that they worship their parents until their parents fail or die—at which point they learn to recognize their parents’ humanity. This dynamic is clearest in the religious attitudes of the narrator, who grew up in an atheist household. Though she begged her parents to let her attend Sunday school because she was curious about religion and wanted to fit in with her more religious classmates, she quickly lost interest in God when she realized that God wouldn’t necessarily give her the things she prayed for. Yet as an adult going through a psychological and emotional crisis after her mother has died and her father has gone missing, the narrator processes her grief by briefly worshipping her parents as literal gods, feeling their presence, power, and guidance despite their physical absence. After she has finished grieving, she realizes her dead parents’ humanity for the first time. In this way, the novel represents religion and worship as a natural psychological phenomenon that adults can outgrow by recognizing their parents’ humanity.