Trapped in an isolated Mennonite village and plagued by turbulent family circumstances, teenager Nomi Nickel grows from a girl into an independent and resourceful young adult. At first, Nomi defines herself against her community, flouting its rules against sex, smoking, and drinking with her boyfriend, Travis. While Travis helps Nomi challenge the conventions of Mennonite society, he’s also self-absorbed and shallow, ignoring Nomi’s emotional needs and pressuring her to act like a “cool” girlfriend. In contrast, despite her professed loathing for her town Nomi cultivates friendships with many of its most vulnerable members, relationships which emphasize her own empathy and outlast her disastrous breakup with Travis. By the end of the novel, Nomi has discarded the trendy persona Travis encouraged her to adopt and relies instead on the positive attributes developed through other friendships. Through Nomi’s example, the novel suggests that though coming-of-age may culminate in leaving one’s hometown, one’s identity is nevertheless shaped by the people within it.
Nomi’s rejection of her Mennonite upbringing is epitomized by her relationship with her boyfriend Travis, which lasts for most of the novel. Mennonite youngsters are supposed to lead wholesome lives governed by hard work and Bible study, but Nomi dislikes this often joyless lifestyle. Instead, she spends much of her time with Travis at the Pits—a grimy gathering place for rebellious teenagers. Nomi clearly sees Travis as kind of escape route from Mennonite life. When he plans to move to Montreal, she daydreams about joining him. Eventually, she even decides to have sex with him—an enormous taboo in Mennonite culture. By being Nomi’s partner in this “sin,” Travis represents her attempt to define herself against Mennonite life.
However, although Travis helps Nomi distance herself from a way of life she finds stifling, he’s hardly a perfect partner. He’s preoccupied with turning her into a “cooler” version of herself, and even though Nomi is going through a familial crisis, he becomes annoyed if she shows sadness or vulnerability. Notably, while Nomi is initially unsure about the idea of having sex, Travis badgers her until she visits a gynecologist for birth control. The tough persona Nomi creates is a way to experiment with leaving her community, rather than a genuine reflection of her character.
In contrast, by developing friendships with vulnerable members of her community, Nomi develops a warmth and empathy that Travis completely lacks. For example, Nomi regularly visits an elderly Mennonite woman, Mrs. Peters, cutting her hair and doing small chores around her house. She patiently listens to Mrs. Peters’ reminiscences about her son Clayton, who tragically drowned, and discusses the likelihood that they will meet in Heaven, showing tact and a deep consideration for the problems of others. Nomi also befriends a little neighbor girl whose overworked mother has little energy for her, always taking time to play with her and engage in her pretend games. Similarly, when she visits her chronically ill friend, Lids, in the hospital, Nomi lovingly performs tasks like washing her hair that the nurses are too inattentive to remember.
In each of these cases, Nomi willingly engages with a community and a set of beliefs that she supposedly loathes. Even though she thinks of her escapades with Travis as indicative of her “real” self, her most admirable attributes—respect and empathy for those different from her—develop outside their relationship and markedly contrast with his callousness.
While Nomi does leave her insular community at the end of the novel, by the time she does so she has dumped Travis and distanced herself from the persona he encouraged her to create. When Nomi and Travis finally have sex, Nomi interprets one of his remarks as an invitation to move with him to Montreal—an impression he quickly and rudely dispels. Not long afterward, she realizes he’s been cheating on her and burns his car in retaliation. While Nomi thought of her relationship with Travis as a way to leave her community, she now viscerally realizes that he’s hardly her ticket out of town.
When Nomi finally does leave town she does so under her own steam, and she marks her exit with visits to Mrs. Peters and Lids, and by bidding farewell to her young neighbor. Through these actions, she acknowledges the formative nature of these relationships. By the end of the novel, Nomi has transitioned from vocal opposition to every aspect of her community to an understanding of the ways in which it has shaped her positively. Ultimately, it’s by accepting that her community has both limited her and fostered her growth that she gains the strength and independence to leave.
For Nomi, growing up means initially means daydreaming of escape from her town, rebelling against its conventions, and emulating her boyfriend’s behavior. However, it’s actually through her friendships with people more committed to Mennonite life that she develops the empathy and independence she will take into adulthood. Unexpectedly, it’s people who are very much rooted in her community who prepare Nomi to leave.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Community and Coming of Age ThemeTracker
Community and Coming of Age Quotes in A Complicated Kindness
But there is kindness here, a complicated kindness. You can see it sometimes in the eyes of people when they look at you and don’t know what to say. When they ask me how my dad is, for instance, and mean how am I managing without my mother.
Americans come here to observe our simple ways. Here, life is so refreshingly uncomplicated. The tourists are encouraged to buy a bag of unbleached flour at the windmill and to wander the dirt lane of the museum village that is set up on the edge of town, depicting the ways in which we used to live. It’s right next to the real town, this one, which is not really real.
A tourist once came up to me and took a picture and said to her husband, now here’s a priceless juxtaposition of old and new. They debated the idea of giving me some money, then concluded: no.
Did he get stitches, I asked.
Yes, she said, right here. She touched her temple.
How many, I asked. She loved to answer questions about Clayton.
Travis had suggested I broaden my horizons and attempt to finish my thoughts. He said I should make a list of ways to improve. Oh that’ll help, I thought.
My mom put some blankets and pillows into a garbage bag and carried it out to Ian’s truck. She put bread and fruit and the fresh ham she’d bought that day into a box and Ian carried that out.
I remembered my mom telling us about the Mennonites in Russia fleeing in the middle of the night, scrambling madly to find a place, any place, where they’d be free. All they needed, she said, was for people to tolerate their unique apartness.
And even though tears in my throat were starting to suffocate me, in the nick of time I remembered Travis telling me once that I was boring when I was offended, and to be boring was the ultimate crime, and I put my head back and made a laughing sound.
And we counted cars with American plates—twenty-seven. On their way to watch The Mouth read Revelations by candlelight in the fake church while the people of the real town sat in a field of dirt cheering on collisions.
