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
Nomi remembers that during her childhood, she and Tash used to sit in their grandmother’s house and listen to obituaries on the radio. Their elders believe that this activity is healthier for children than listening to the Beatles or playing pretend, which Nomi still sometimes secretly does. However, at Sunday school they are allowed to play certain kinds of pretend games: the teacher pretends to different kinds people who can’t “get on the heaven train,” from “Professor Knuf” to “Rockin’ Rhonda” to “Slugger Sam.” Only “Farmer Fred” can go to Heaven because he loves Jesus. Nomi enjoys drawing pictures of Farmer Fred sailing into Heaven and leaving the others crying at the gate, although she can never figure out why the professor is denied entry.
Mennonite culture is so centered around the afterlife that people prefer contemplating death to interacting with potentially sinful culture. At the same time, rigid ideas of right and wrong provide Nomi with a secure outlook. She clearly has mixed feelings about her religion—her mocking description of the propaganda to which she’s exposed as a child evidences both a distrust of religious dogma and a reluctant nostalgia for the days when that dogma guided her life.
Themes
One afternoon, young Nomi is standing in her grandmother’s field, pretending to be a scarecrow, when she sees two dresses fly off a clothesline and dance through the air “in this crazy, free, beautiful way” until one falls onto the barn roof and the other falls to the ground in front of her. Nomi doesn’t touch the dresses, and for all she knows the dress on the roof might still be there.
While Nomi feels ambivalent about the afterlife, she’s often awed by moments of beauty in her daily life. This lyrical scene suggests the importance of recognizing the value of earthly life, rather than turning away from it.
Themes
In the present day, Nomi has just returned home from a drive with Travis. Sometimes they race farm dogs or tape notes on cows; today they have found a tree and taken turns jumping out of the branches. Then they drive to Nomi’s grandmother’s house so she can see if the dress is still there. Predictably, it has vanished and Nomi feels tired and upset. Travis tells her not to be sad; after all, she shouldn’t have expected anything different.
Travis enjoys Nomi’s company when she’s feeling whimsical and adventurous. But when she’s sad or upset—understandable feelings in the wake of family trauma—he’s dismissive and impatient, showing his underlying shallow nature and lack of genuine care for her.
Themes
Nomi remembers that, on their first date, Ray and Trudie walked to church together. Once they reached the door, Ray didn’t know whether to go inside immediately, but Trudie plunged ahead. That day, the church elders voted to excommunicate three community members. Tash was appalled when she found out that Ray and Trudie met at a shunning, but Nomi loved hearing about it because it reinforces her “belief system of right and wrong.” She always made Trudie tell her about excommunicated people who “lived like ghosts in their own town,” and the sadness of their families. However, Trudie would point out the possibility of forgiveness and tell stories about evading the rules. For example, a husband and his shunned wife might eat dinner at separate but adjacent tables in order to obey the prohibition against sharing a table.
The fact that Trudie and Ray met at a shunning demonstrates how positive aspects of life in their Mennonite community coexist uneasily with its most glaring flaws. It’s interesting how Nomi’s childhood outlook contrasts with Tash’s, as this difference underscores the radical transformation that Nomi undergoes after her sister’s departure. Trudie’s stories about people evading the rules of shunning shows her emphasis on the importance of family, even when family is pitted against the rules of the church.
Themes
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There is one woman who has been shunned for adultery but still lives in Nomi’s town. Sometimes she faints in the street and people leave food by her side, but no one can actually talk to her. Trudie explains that the blackouts are caused by stress, something that fascinates Nomi. Sometimes Trudie herself will talk under her breath to invisible people, only to deny doing so when Nomi asks her about it. Nomi compares the community’s “complicated kindness” to the shunned woman to people’s habit of asking after her welfare or praying for her without specifically mentioning her own mother’s departure.
That the community shuns an obviously mentally ill woman shows the fundamental flaws in its ideology, but the fact that people find subtle ways to help her suggests a general recognition that no one can live in complete accordance with the religion’s strict rules. This tension between ideology and actual life is oppressive to Nomi, but also comfortingly familiar, giving her a framework to interact with other people in the town.
Themes
