Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Complicated Kindness, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Religion and Dogma
Family and Home
Community and Coming of Age
Narrative and Storytelling
Christian Salvation vs. Earthly Joy
Summary
Analysis
Travis, “who likes to teach [Nomi] things,” is showing her how to drive. At night, they drive to buy liquor in nearby French villages. Nomi relates that during WWII, when the French men were away in the army, Mennonites who had been exempted from the army because of their religion bought up much of the land from the soldiers’ impoverished families. Nomi has learned about this history by riding her bike into neighboring villages and asking the inhabitants what they think of Mennonites. She tried to write a report for school, but her teacher said it was “wicked.”
Nomi’s inquisitive spirit leads her to question not only religious dogmas, but historical “certainties.” Again, this habit causes reproach from her teachers at school. Instances like this establish Nomi’s own narrative as an illustration of the consequences of rigid worldviews on a personal level.
Themes
Now, Nomi and Travis try to make amends by buying their booze in the French villages. Wealthier Mennonites go on vacations to places like Hawaii when they want to drink without incurring social disapproval. Nomi says that the most embarrassing possibility for Mennonites is “to meet other wealthy Mennonites at the swim-up bar at the Honolulu Holiday Inn.”
Nomi’s joke implicitly illustrates the impossibility of living according to strict Mennonite dogma at all times. It also shows that people who are wealthy and powerful can disobey norms without incurring consequences to which those lower on the social ladder are vulnerable.
Themes
Travis and Nomi return to Travis’s basement to drink and listen to records. He shows her the scars from an operation on his ears, but to Nomi he so “perfect” that she can hardly believe she’s actually talking to him. Travis plays James Taylor songs on his guitar while Nomi smokes and thinks about Tash.
Travis is obviously not perfect, so Nomi’s worshipful attitude of him suggests her lack of self-esteem. She’s essentially chosen Travis to replace religion and family as the center of her life, but she doesn’t apply the same questioning attitude to him as she does to the Mennonite community. Her devotion to him suggests that she, too, is vulnerable to being controlled by something (or someone) other than herself.
Themes
Nomi recalls that after running away, Tash called home a few times before falling out of contact. In the 1970s, lots of teenagers ran away from home to live on communes and have lots of babies, but Nomi doesn’t believe Tash would do this—it’s too similar to the way they live at home. She always used to complain to her parents that Mennonites are regarded as a joke in the outside world. Now all Nomi has left of her is her magazine collection and her razor blades. Nomi and Ray used to get excited every time the phone rang, but now they hardly notice it.
Nomi astutely points out that the Mennonite community actually has some attributes in common with the hippie cults of the 70s, whose values the church opposes. Tash’s complaints to her parents signal her sense of belonging in her community, but this sense of being rooted is something she wants to get away from, not embrace.
Themes
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After Trudie and Tash leave the family, The Mouth comes over to pray with Ray and Nomi. He tells them bracingly that they can’t “live in crisis forever.” Ray evades further confrontation by going to check on the softener salt in his water tank. Nomi says that this probably isn’t even a trick; even in normal times, Ray is the kind of person who checks on household appliances several times a day. Often, when seeing Nomi, he expresses surprise that she’s still here, which disconcerts her.
The Mouth’s dismissive attitude reflects his broader conviction that family relationships are less important than adherence to religious dogma. In contrast, Ray’s emphasis on household chores, even when he doesn’t actually complete them, reflects his devotion to the family (which is represented by the house) above all else.
Themes
Nomi is sitting on her driveway pushing fake seashells into the melting asphalt when Ray pulls into the driveway on his bicycle. He gives her some chalk from the school where he works and points out that the little neighbor girl has a new bicycle. When Nomi doesn’t say anything, he salutes her and goes inside; she feels bad for being an unenthusiastic daughter.
Both Ray and Nomi are trying to connect with each other, but without Trudie to mediate their relationship, they can’t quite figure it out. Ray’s reference to the neighbor girl is a nod to the simpler quality of their life when Nomi was a young child.
Themes
Nomi uses the chalk to write a Gauguin quote on the driveway: “Life being what it is, on dreams of revenge.” Her neighbor, an “unhappy housewife,” walks out to look at it. She complains about living in a house filled with primary colors, and then points at Nomi’s house, which is painted wild shades of pink and blue, and asks if her family is crazy. Nomi says she’s never thought about it.
Nomi is certainly eccentric—her neighbor’s comment (and the mean nurse’s insult in the previous chapter) suggest that the town perceives her as crazy. But the behavior of other people (like the neighbor here) is often no less strange. By contrast, Nomi is willing to question the dogmatic attitudes of those around her, and to accept other people’s quirks rather than othering them.
Themes
As it gets dark, Nomi walks to Abe’s Hill to watch the lights in the city come on. When she gets home, she finds that Ray has left a copy of The Screwtape Letters on her desk. Nomi puts on one of Tash’s records and lies in bed thinking about Travis and looking at her poster of Christina’s World.
Christina’s World is an Andrew Wyeth portrait of a woman sitting in a field, gazing at a farmhouse yet fundamentally separate from it. The woman seems to be simultaneously drawn to the farmhouse and alienated from it, a duality that reflects Nomi’s own ambivalent feelings, both toward her own community and the city in which she eventually hopes to live.
Themes
