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Chapter 33
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Immortalists, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fate vs. Choice
Family and Shared History
Obsession
Death, Meaning, and Legacy
Surviving vs. Living
Magic, Religion, Dance, and Possibility
Summary
Analysis
Varya runs through the lobby and out into the parking lot, hoping to put as much distance between her and Luke as possible. He shouts after her, threatening to sell his photos to an animal rights organization if she doesn’t talk to him. He says he doesn’t want to blackmail her—he only wanted to meet her. Luke explains that it took him years to find her, because his records had been sealed at the adoption agency. Varya starts to cry, and Luke offers her a handkerchief. He tells her that it’s clean and reveals that he shares some of her fears—he’s afraid of killing people accidentally. Varya knows exactly what he means.
Even though Varya gave up Luke for adoption, the story illustrates that family members remain connected to one another other because they find value in their shared history and experiences. Luke seeks Varya out because he wants to know the details of his origins. Luke also shares some of Varya’s OCD, which shows how family can be a good and bad influence, even without ever meeting.
Themes
Varya drives to her condo while Luke follows. Seeing her condo through Luke’s eyes, she realizes how dark and ugly and bare it is. She keeps it that way so that she can clean it easily but won’t see every speck of dirt. Luke asks what it was like on the day he was born—August 11th, 1984. She says it was sweltering, and she had only her mother Gertie for company. After she gave Luke over, she said that they couldn’t talk about it ever again. Gertie has never raised the subject, though it underlies many of their conversations.
Here many of Varya’s exchanges with Gertie take on new meanings, like Gertie’s friends criticizing Varya for never having a partner or children. These comments affect Varya not because she has never had the opportunity to have a partner or children, but because she could have had that opportunity and instead chose to give it up. In addition, Varya’s thoughts about her apartment reveal how Varya herself is more concerned with surviving than living. Her home décor isn’t based on any aesthetic choices—it’s deliberately bleak to cater to her OCD and anxiety.
Themes
Luke asks about his father. Varya explains that he was a visiting professor at her grad school. They slept together a few times but he never knew she was pregnant. She tried to contact him to see if he wanted to raise Luke, but when he never responded, she stopped trying. Varya is stunned she didn’t recognize Luke, remembering the nine months they shared a body and the anguished birth that followed.
Varya illustrates how she, too, is glad to reconnect with Luke, even though the memory of putting her son up for adoption is a painful one. She still shares an experience with him that she shares with no other person, and this gives them an unbreakable bond.
Themes
Luke asks what he was like as a baby; Varya responds that he had black hair and blue eyes—noting that now Luke has blond hair and his eyes have turned brown. Luke asks why she didn’t keep him. She says that she was afraid of having a child and becoming attached to another person. He then asks why she didn’t get an abortion. Varya explains that she made an appointment, but she couldn’t go through with it. She says that she was trying to compensate for the fact that she didn’t fully engage in life, and she hoped he would.
Varya’s explanation for why she didn’t have an abortion implies that she viewed Luke as a kind of legacy. Varya found meaning in the idea that her child would build on her life, contributing to the world in a way in which she did not.In addition, it is again clear how much Varya’s obsession costs her, because her fear of becoming attached to or harming another person led her to cut off her relationship with her only child.
Themes
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Luke asks if Varya has been married or had another child. She says no—she hasn’t had a relationship since the professor. Luke then gets up and goes to the kitchen, leaning over the sink. Varya notices Saul’s gold watch on the windowsill in front of the sink. Daniel had collected it from Raj after Klara’s death, but he hadn’t wanted it. Varya understood that it unsettled him, and so she took it instead.
The watch’s journey continues to have symbolic significance. The fact that Daniel did not want Saul’s watch is apt for his character. Unlike Klara and Simon, who were troubled by their limited time, Daniel instead tried to ignore his impending death. For this reason, he chose to avoid the watch, which reminds each Gold of their mortality.
Themes
Luke then reaches for the fridge, and before Varya can stop him, he sees her prepacked meals: fruit with two tablespoons of cereal; nuts with beans, or a slab of tofu or tuna. On the side of the refrigerator is an Excel spreadsheet with the caloric content. Varya, too, follows a restricted diet. In the first year of her restriction, Varya lost 15% of her body weight.
The revelation that Varya is restricting her own diet suggests that Varya values surviving for a long time over “living”—or being able to enjoy the things that life has to offer. The restricted diet is yet another way in which Varya is trying to ensure that she can live a long life and fulfill the prophecy, but it doesn’t necessarily make her happier.
Themes
Luke asks why Varya does this to herself. He says it makes him sad that she is like her monkeys, “locked up and underfed.” She says that she—and the monkeys—will have a longer life, but Luke responds that this doesn’t mean they’ll have a better life. She angrily asks if she should live her life like Simon or Klara, and Luke says it’s silly for her to think that there’s any way to truly stop death—she’s convinced herself that she’ll live longer because of her careful behavior, when in reality it’s simply random. Varya protests, telling Luke not to lecture her. She says that he knows nothing because he’s a child, and that he hasn’t experienced what she has.
Finally, Luke explicitly states that a longer life doesn’t necessarily mean a better one, which is the central idea of Varya’s section of the novel. Varya is sacrificing happiness in order to survive for a long time, just as the monkeys live a longer life in captivity but not necessarily a fuller or happier one. Simon’s life, on the other hand, is a counterpoint to Varya’s, as he prioritized finding meaning and pleasure in his life, even at the cost of living for a long time.
Themes
Luke says that he’s experienced loss, too. He says that his older brother Asher died when Asher was a teenager and Luke was a toddler. One day, they visited the grain bins on their farm to check for clumps. Asher went into the bin, and Luke was supposed to stand lookout in case anything went wrong. Instead, Luke ran away and hid. After a few minutes, when Asher didn’t come out to find him, Luke knew something was wrong. But he just hid. Later they found Asher under the grain: he had sunk and suffocated. Varya asks Luke to leave. Luke is amazed that this is all she has to say, and he shoves past her and out the door.
Here Luke reveals why he is terrified of accidentally hurting people—because he accidentally contributed to the death of his older brother. This is similar to Varya’s own obsession: she wants to avoid loss not only because of what she feared would happen, but also because of she has already experienced so much loss. Even though Varya doesn’t react to Luke’s story here, she still shares the experience of not being able to protect those closest to her.
Themes
Varya climbs into her car, intending to follow Luke, but she loses her nerve and drives to the lab, though everyone has left for the night. Varya finds that Frida has started to gnaw at her own arm, leaving a mangled gash of blood and tissue around her bone. Varya tries to coax her out, but Frida refuses to come. Instead, Varya ties a leash around her neck and pulls her out of the cage. The monkey keels over and starts to choke, and Varya goes over and lifts Frida, despite the fact that she’s not wearing any protective gear.
Frida’s ordeal again supports the argument that a longer life does not mean a better one. She is supposed to be part of the healthier group of monkeys, and yet the captivity and lack of food have made her so miserable that she is trying to hurt herself and has completely lost the will to live.
Themes
Varya carries Frida over to the bins for the unrestricted monkeys, letting her eat as much as she wants. But Frida is weak, and when she reaches for the raisins, she instead brings her arm back to her face and chews at her wound. Varya pulls Frida’s hand away and sobs, bringing raisins to Frida’s mouth. Frida eats from Varya’s hand, and Varya is relieved. Then, suddenly, Frida vomits. Varya holds her, unsure of what to do. Frida struggles to get away, but Varya clings to the monkey. Then, Frida bites Varya’s chin.
Varya sympathizes with Frida and is terrified to see her harm herself. The fact that Varya ruins the experiment to try to help Frida illustrates Varya’s own acknowledgement that what they are doing to the monkeys does not actually provide them with a better life—simply a longer one. Varya’s concern is so powerful that she even overcomes her fear of disease, choosing to hold Frida even though she is not wearing protective gear.
Themes
