A Complicated Kindness

by

Miriam Toews

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A Complicated Kindness: Chapter Twenty-Five Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
That night, Nomi and Travis sit in the park drinking until they accidentally smash their liquor bottle. They give each other haircuts and sleep until dawn. They climb up the feed mill fire escape and make out, hoping some farmer will see them and be scandalized. Nomi can see the sun rising and mist coming off the river; it feels like “the outdoor version of waking up to your mom making breakfast and your dad sitting confidently at the table with no plan to sell it.”
Nomi compares her closeness to Travis to her previous closeness to her family. This moment of satisfaction—however ephemeral—effectively functions as a replacement for the family life she once had.
Themes
Family and Home Theme Icon
Community and Coming of Age Theme Icon
At home, Nomi shaves her entire head before going to school. Mr. Quiring asks if she’s having a nervous breakdown, and when Nomi tells him not to touch her, he throws her out of class. Nomi remembers being nine years old, going for a walk before school, and feeling happier than ever before in her life. When she went to school, she told her teacher that she was so happy she could fly or dance. The teacher said sharply that “life was not a dream” and “dancing is a sin.” For the first time, Nomi was aware that was alive and would someday be dead, and that after she dies there might be no afterlife. She realized that the world “is good enough” for her “because it has to be.”
Mr. Quiring is one of the few people who actually notices that something is wrong with Nomi, but he’s so insensitive and judgmental that his insight isn’t helpful at all. He’s much like Nomi’s earlier teacher who urges her to repress her feelings of joy in the name of religious virtue. In both of these cases, Nomi has to learn to disregard their teachers, rather than follow their examples.
Themes
Christian Salvation vs. Earthly Joy Theme Icon
Quotes
Nomi walks to the school where Ray teaches and waves at him through the window. His desk is filled with flowers that his students have picked for him. She walks home, reads part of The Screwtape Letters, and falls asleep. When she wakes up, she finds a strange woman lying on the living-room floor. Ray explains that she’s a state inspector who collapsed while visiting the school. The woman wakes up and introduces herself as Edwina, and they all have tea on the porch. When Edwina discovers their last name is Nickel, she asks if they’re related to Trudie, whom she knows from performing musicals together many years ago. Nomi is shocked to find out that Trudie ever did theater, but Ray doesn’t want to talk about it, and soon offers to drive Edwina home.
The Screwtape Letters is a philosophical meditation by Christian thinker C.S. Lewis. That Ray gives this book to Nomi indicates his desire that she retain her faith, but also approach it with more intellectualism than is generally condoned in her community. At the same time, the revelation that Trudie used to star in secular musicals reveals the extent of Trudie’s own ambiguities about her faith, and her transgressions of Mennonite principals.
Themes
Religion and Dogma Theme Icon
Family and Home Theme Icon
Nomi walks to the museum village and makes out with Travis in the barn until his fake wife from the museum comes to find him. Nomi sits on the forge to smoke a cigarette, and an American teenager strikes up a conversation with her. Nomi tells him where to buy drugs and asks how he likes being an American. Then his parents come to collect him and he leaves. Nomi turns to watch some men from the town slaughtering a pig in a historically accurate manner. Some tourists are watching in evident disgust, telling their children not to get too close.
Normally Nomi feels alienated by American tourists, but this boy is much like her—an apathetic teenager more interested in scoring drugs than hanging out with his parents. At the same time, the parents’ understandable squeamishness at the pig slaughtering is a reminder of Nomi’s community’s isolation, and its strangeness in the eyes of the outside world.
Themes
Community and Coming of Age Theme Icon
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That night, Travis picks Nomi up for a drive. They have sex, and Nomi says in retrospect that it might have gone better if she wasn’t “drunk, depressed, and jealous.” Travis tells her to “move with me,” and she thinks he’s inviting her to Montreal, but he just wants her to move with his body. On the way home, Nomi starts crying for no reason, and slams the truck into reverse while driving 50 miles per hour.
Nomi has always equated Travis with the possibility of escape from East Village, and by having sex with him she hopes to cement this life path. However, this tragically funny incident shows Nomi that sex with him won’t make her happier, and that if she wants to leave home, she can’t count on Travis to help her.
Themes
Community and Coming of Age Theme Icon