A Little Life: Part 5: The Happy Years: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

It’s heartbreaking for Jude to realize that sex—even with someone he genuinely loves—will (at least for now) always remind him of his childhood sexual abuse. In this regard, Willem’s love is not enough to overpower the hold Jude’s unresolved trauma has over his mind and body. Jude hopes and wants things to get better in time, but it doesn’t seem like this will happen. Also note how Jude is using advice that Brother Luke—Jude’s former abuser—gave to him to navigate his sex life with Willem: “show a little life, a little enthusiasm,” Brother Luke told Jude to ensure that the “clients” Luke forced on Jude would enjoy their time with him. When Jude heeds this advice in the present, then, there’s little difference between the sex he has with Willem and the sex (rape) he had with his clients as a young boy. Sadder still is that Willem seems to fall for Jude’s act as readily as Jude’s former clients, pedophiles who actively exploited and harmed Jude. This passage aptly illustrates how Jude’s unresolved trauma causes his past to meld with his present, causing him yet more suffering, even as his circumstances have, on the surface, improved. 

Jude’s (admittedly subjective and unfair) distaste for Willem’s sexuality is further evidence of how Jude’s unresolved past trauma bleeds into (and poisons) his present. Jude sees Willem as someone who uses him for sex, and in this way, Willem appears no different than Caleb or the many people who abused Jude as a young child. Meanwhile, Willem’s suggestion that Jude might find a pill to help him achieve an erection underscores how superficially Willem understands Jude’s problems: he believes Jude’s issues with sex are purely physical, not the complicated, painful manifestation of unresolved trauma. He underestimates Jude’s condition, even if he doesn’t mean to. For as supportive and helpful as Willem is, and although Jude has begun to open up to Willem about his past, the fact remains that there are limitations to how well they can empathize with each other’s struggles.

Though there are serious issues in their relationship, Jude is making real efforts to confront them—this passage, which occurs several hundred pages into the novel, is the first time Jude has picked up a self-help book. It’s a small step, admittedly, and not a pursuit Jude seems to find terribly helpful, but his actions suggest a shift in his thinking. He seems more confident in his ability to get better and enjoy life.

Since being with Willem, Jude has shown signs of improvement—or at least, signs that he’s more hopeful about his theoretical ability to heal. But once Jude and Willem start having sex, Jude’s wellness starts to decline, as evidenced by his more frequent cutting. Not only is sex triggering for Jude, but it also seems that Jude is disappointed in himself for being triggered: he thought everything would fall into place over time because he loves Willem, and that’s turned out not to be true. Another thing that being with Willem doesn’t improve is Jude’s self-harm. Now, whenever Jude cuts, he has to weight the relief that cutting brings him against the hurt that his self-harm causes Willem.  

Willem’s pleading is evidence of his worldview. He believes that there is logic and rationality to Jude’s struggles: that if Willem only says the right thing or makes the right bargain, then Jude will stop hurting himself and improve. But in reality, things are not so simple.

This painful scene is further evidence of Willem’s rational view of pain and suffering. He wants to believe that coerced empathy can cause Jude to stop cutting himself: that if Jude can only understand the pain that Willem feels when he watches Jude hurt himself, then Jude can be convinced to stop his self-harm. He also tries to analyze Jude’s self-harm empirically, reasoning that there’s a positive correlation between Jude’s happiness and Jude’s compulsion to harm himself; therefore, thinks Willem, Jude’s self-harm is evidence that Jude is not happy. But in reality, there is no neat formula to apply to Jude’s pain and suffering, nor any guarantee that Willem can fix it. 

This moment marks a major development in Jude and Willem’s relationship. This seems like the first major fight they’ve had. And the seriousness of the fight shows that Jude’s issues aren’t something that Willem can fix through love, patience, and compassion; indeed, it’s unclear if Jude is capable of healing at all. Willem finally recognizes the unfairness of their predicament, too. He sees that he and Jude are both trying—and he sees how unfair it is that they have to try at all. Jude’s abusers have left him with unwieldy psychological baggage, and it’s unfair that he must carry this burden—but this is the way it is.

Despite his and Willem’s major argument, Jude continues to fight for his relationship. He busies himself as best he can to fend off the urge to harm himself. He distracts himself with chores. Willem tries to lift some of Jude’s unfair burden onto himself by inviting Jude to wake him up whenever Jude has the urge to cut. This allows Jude to confront his pain with Willem beside him. And though Willem can’t totally empathize with Jude’s pain, he can at least be by Jude’s side, just as he was the night Jude had a painful episode so many years ago in college. Willem’s strategy seems to work: eventually, Jude’s urge to harm himself passes, and he awakens the next morning feeling restored and ready to take on life. So, once more, the novel teases the notion that Willem’s love and support might be enough to help Jude work through his unresolved trauma.

Jude and Willem’s new house is symbol of the life they’ve built together. The fact that Malcolm is designing the house infuses the house with more symbolic meaning, too. The house symbolizes Jude and Willem’s lifelong friendship with Malcolm. It also reflects Malcolm’s passion and creativity—and the way this creativity allows him to shape his life into something meaningful. Design gives him a sense of control and meaning and balance that life so rarely affords him—or, within the world of the novel, anyone.

This scene offers another glimpse into part of Jude’s past that the novel has yet to explore. It’s still not clear how Jude got his injuries, and maybe this scene with the semitruck offers a clue into this mystery. 

This passage demonstrates how Jude’s trauma comes back to him in uneven and unpredictable waves. So, the triggering incidents that Jude is experiencing now (for instance, seeing Brother Luke’s face when he kisses Willem) have occurred throughout his life. With this, the novel suggests that though Jude has had high and low periods over the years, he is very much in the same space, psychologically, that he’s been his entire life. In other words, he has not improved. Also note Jude’s mention of Dr. Traylor. It's unclear who, exactly, this is, but given Jude’s negative associations with him and that he was arrested, the reader can assume that he’s one more person who has hurt or abused Jude in some way.

Jude has managed to stay afloat for decades, just barely keeping his trauma at bay. But Caleb’s abuse broke something inside of him, and it seems he’s no longer able to suppress “the hyenas.” Jude never explicitly states why Caleb has affected him so intensely, but it seems that, for much of Jude’s life, he’s only had to grapple with memories of his history of abuse. Being with Caleb, however, forces Jude to physically relive his past trauma—and to endure additional abuse. With this, everything that Jude kept suppressed and hidden beneath the surface suddenly bubbles over, and everything becomes too much for him to manage—even with Willem by his side to love and support him. 

Jude borrows this excruciating exercise in pain from Father Gabriel who, many years before, burnt Jude’s hand as punishment for stealing. Jude’s reasons for recreating this childhood punishment are unclear. On the one hand, there is a practical explanation: it will be easy enough for Jude to justify the resultant injury to Willem (by lying that he burned himself while cooking). Beyond this practical reason, Jude seems (somehow) to find burning himself less degrading than throwing himself down the stairs. This reaffirms the notion that Caleb’s abuse has affected him more intensely than other abuse he’s endured in the past. Also note the out-of-body experience Jude has upon lighting himself on fire—when he smells his burning flesh, he initially thinks he’s left something on the stove. This illustrates one of the ways Jude’s self-harm functions as a coping mechanism: it allows him to abandon his body, which carries the physical and psychological weight of years of abuse. 

The burn is a more serious injury than Jude thought it would be, as it’s incredibly painful and infected. This guide presents a pared-down description of Jude’s wounds presented in the novel, but the visceral, nauseating quality of that description still comes through. These graphic details underscore the depth of Jude’s pain: if his self-harm injuries symbolize his unresolved trauma and inner struggle, then it’s clear, by the severity of Jude’s latest wound, that he’s in a dark place, maybe the darkest place he’s ever been. Indeed, Jude reinforces this theory when he worries that he’s finally hurt himself badly enough that Andy won’t be able to fix him. 

Andy has tried to balance his role as Jude’s friend with his role as Jude’s doctor; that is, he’s tried to respect Jude’s boundaries while also honoring his obligation, as a medical professional, to keep Jude alive and well. But this injury forces Andy to reconsider his strategy, and so he finally tells Jude that he’ll no longer respect Jude’s privacy if Jude continues down this path of self-destruction. Another important detail to note: Andy spells out how Jude is hurting others besides himself when he self-harms: he's also hurting the friends who care about him and want him to be well. Jude’s self-harm hurts them because they hate to see him in pain. But it also hurts them, perhaps, because it’s a visual reminder of their failure to help Jude. 

In this passage, Willem ruminates on the fluid nature of identity. Throughout his life, his shifting circumstances and relationships have forced him to reevaluate who he is and what responsibilities he must honor. The idea that a person’s identity changes as they assume different roles throughout their life, much like an actor becomes different characters throughout their career, is one of the book’s central ideas. This passage illuminates one aspect of Willem’s personality that has been on the backburner for much of the novel: Willem’s insecurities about his career. Willem is often content to be a good friend and companion and could care less about his success as an actor. But his thoughts in this passage show that he’s not immune to the pressure to succeed professionally.

Shame fuels much of Jude’s secrecy, and so Willem wants their relationship to be the rare happy secret that Jude hides from the world. This passage also reinforces how Willem, like Andy, struggles to balance his desire to respect Jude’s boundaries with his moral (and selfish) drive to keep Jude alive and well.

Willem mistakes Jude’s apparent sexual adeptness with enjoyment—he thinks that Jude’s “sexually dexterous” performance is proof that he enjoys and has sought out sex in the past. In reality, Jude’s “dexter[ity]” is the consequence of years of sexual abuse. Willem doesn’t seem to know that Jude (presumably) hasn’t had sex of his own volition, and his ignorance leads him to subject Jude to additional discomfort and trauma.

Willem, if only subconsciously, has doubts about Jude’s honesty in their relationship. This passage further illustrates how Jude’s secrecy and unresolved trauma hurts not just himself but the people who care about him. Willem is clearly making an effort to be mindful of checking in on Jude and gauging his comfort level, but his efforts are only so useful if Jude can’t be honest with him.    

Willem realizes that Jude’s struggles aren’t some parasite he can cut out of Jude’s body. They are an integral part of his personality—and they might always be, no matter how hard Willem tries to get rid of them.  

Willem’s fear that he and Jude are simply “playing house” expands on Willem’s realization that Jude’s dark side is (and might always be) part of who Jude is. Willem wants to tell himself that, with time, the happy, confident person Jude is when they are “playing house” might replace the self-destructive, suffering Jude. At the same time, though, he fears that Jude’s good days aren’t a sign of progress—they’re simply Jude faking happiness to please Willem.

This passage illustrates Willem’s misconceptions about the relationship between suffering and misfortune, and happiness and fortune. Willem believes that Jude, because he has everything he wants—a good job, a home, and a person who loves him—ought to be happy. Jude’s experiences show that this isn’t true: in reality, good fortune doesn’t guarantee personal fulfillment or happiness.    

Jude is implicitly preparing Willem for when he confesses to burning himself. It’s clear that Jude has taken Andy’s warning seriously and wants to make the effort to be more honest with Willem. 

Andy’s phone call alerts Willem to Jude’s dishonesty before Jude has the chance to tell Willem about the burn himself, so the reader (and Willem) will never know whether Jude would have told Willem about the burn of his own accord. The previous passage implies that Jude has been preparing to tell Willem, but there’s no way to know if Jude would’ve gone through with it. By extension, there’s no way to know how seriously Jude is taking Andy’s threat to start being more honest or expect Willem to leave him. At any rate, Andy's gaffe likely will create tension between Willem and Jude.  

Jude’s evasive response to Willem’s question suggests that he might not have told Willem about the burn if Andy hadn’t called. This is a huge setback for Jude and Willem, then: it shows that Jude has broken his promise to Willem not to hurt himself. In addition, it shows that Jude isn’t making all that much progress in his efforts to be more honest with Willem. Willem’s reference to Brother Luke suggest that his anger isn’t even about the wound: it’s about the strain that Jude’s secrecy puts on their relationship.

Willem knows that he’s not really mad at Jude: he’s mad at himself for failing to be someone that Jude feels comfortable opening up around. He’s mad that his love isn’t enough to “make [Jude] better.” At the same time, though, Jude’s suffering—even if it’s not his fault—places an enormous burden on Willem, and it’s clear that Jude’s inability to get better and start to confront his unresolved trauma is creating an unstable dynamic in Jude and Willem’s relationship.

Willem and Jude’s inability to act normal shows how serious this fight is. Throughout the novel, houses symbolize security and possibility of self-invention. Harold and Julia’s house, for instance, has often been a place where Jude can feel protected and like he’s part of a family. But this fight with Willem totally shatters this sense of security, revealing its underlying fragility. Willem’s rage proves to Jude that everyone in his life—even people like Willem, with whom he’s come to feel (relatively) safe and secure—is capable of hurting him. 

In comparing Willem’s efforts to find fresh cuts to rape, the novel explores morally the shifty task of helping someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Willem feels a moral and personal obligation to stop Jude from hurting himself, yet doing so requires him to hurt Jude even more, by ignoring Jude’s boundaries and depriving him of bodily autonomy. In addition, Willem’s concern for Jude, when it reaches its boiling point, transforms into anger (i.e., Willem calling Jude “crazy”) that further hurts Jude.

Willem’s angry response to Jude suggests that Jude has hit the nail on the head in suggesting that Willem is treating Jude as a second chance “to save” someone after failing “to save Hemming.” Jude’s self-disparaging remark (calling himself a “cripple”) hints at another key idea: that his suffering is just as incurable as Hemming’s terminal illness was, and that Willem is no more capable of saving Jude than he was Hemming.

Up until now, Willem has thought that his relationship with Jude was based on love alone. But Jude’s accusation about Hemming has forced him to consider if that’s really true—if he could in fact be using Jude to absolve his guilt over failing to save Hemming. This raises a bigger question: is it even possible to sustain a relationship on love alone? Can a person love someone else without wanting (and getting) something from them in return? Finally, Willem and Jude’s home together has symbolized their relationship, so when Willem packs his things and leaves, it reflects the current turmoil in their relationship.   

Andy believes that Willem and Jude can get past this major rift if they just open up to each other. But is it really so easy? Jude has made progress in opening up to Willem, however minor that progress may be, and still, Jude’s inability to work through his unresolved trauma puts a huge amount of stress on them both.

Willem’s return to the apartment figuratively and literally expresses his desire to make amends and restore harmony in his and Jude’s relationship. Willem’s insistence that Jude get help shows that Willem no longer has any illusions about his ability to help Jude on his own: love, Willem understands, is not enough to fix Jude, and it’s only hurting them both to pretend it is.

This is a major development in Willem and Jude’s relationship. Jude’s past is full of horrors, but it’s clear that Brother Luke is a subject that’s most painful for Jude to think about and that’s had the biggest impact on his life. This is because, unlike Jude’s other abusers who abused him out of hatred and disgust, Luke “loved” Jude, even as he abused and manipulated him. That is, Luke showed Jude that people who love him are also capable of hurting and betraying him. Jude’s actions in this passage are contradictory. He insists that it’s “too late” for him to recover from his trauma, yet he then calls Dr. Loehmann to start therapy sessions for the first time in his life. Has Jude had a change of heart? Or is he merely putting on a show for Willem’s sake, all the while knowing that the therapy sessions will be useless?

This sections begins what seems to be the last piece to Jude’s mysterious past. Thus far, the novel has shed light on Jude’s early childhood at the monastery, his experience being sex trafficked, his brief time at the boys’ home before his mysterious accident, and his time with Ana afterward. But how the accident itself happened has remained a mystery—until now.

Jude’s life after the police rescued him from Brother Luke isn’t much of an improvement; in a twisted way, it’s possibly worse. Luke abused Jude but also claimed to love him, and Jude was young and naïve enough to believe this, even if it wasn’t true. Now, he’s in an environment not unlike the monastery he fled years ago, surrounded by authority figures who abuse their power to hurt and deride Jude. This reinforces his pre-existing feelings of worthlessness and shame. 

This passage explains the origins of Jude’s body-image issues. Before, Jude practiced self-harm to reclaim agency over his body and manage his pain (physical and emotional) on his own terms. As such, his scars symbolized his strength and will to survive. Now, though, as the kids tease him for his scarred, distorted appearance, his scars are no longer empowering: they are another source of shame and evidence of his brokenness. Also note, though Jude is in a dark place, he still holds out hope that his circumstances will improve. This is so different from the person he becomes as an adult, especially after Caleb.

The novel has shown how, many years later, Luke abuse has led Jude to develop trust issues. This passage offers an earlier example of the effects of Luke’s abuse: Luke taught him that even people who love him are capable of betraying and hurting him, and this makes Jude suspicious of the kind professor’s intentions to offer help.  

It's unclear exactly why Jude chooses to engage in sex work to escape to Boston when he could simply buy a bus ticket. One might interpret Jude’s actions as an exercise in self-harm, not unlike his cutting. Before, Jude would cut himself to reclaim ownership of his body, something he lost when he became a victim of human trafficking. Voluntarily engaging in sex work, then, allows Jude to exercise agency over his body. In addition, Jude, at this point, is still hopeful that he can have a happy, better future—from this perspective, engaging in sex work, even if he finds it shameful, is worth the reward of a happier life that might lie ahead.   

The strange man mentions he’s a doctor, so it’s possible that he is Dr. Traylor. (Earlier in the novel, it’s mentioned in passing that Dr. Traylor was arrested for the role he played in Jude’s leg and back injuries.) At any rate, the reader should be wary of this man. He gives Jude something to eat and promises to give Jude antibiotics to heal his infection, but Jude has been let down by practically every adult figure who should have helped him, and the disgust that the man has for Jude’s history of sex work certainly raises a red flag. 

Jude unbuttons his shirt because he assumes the man will demand sex (rape—Jude is still underage) in exchange for the food and shelter he’s provided Jude. Jude’s long history of abuse has taught him to be skeptical of kindness. He believes that he doesn’t deserve kindness and compassion unless he can offer something—usually his body—in return. 

That the man has locked the basement door, effectively imprisoning Jude in the basement, raises another red flag. The man is feeding and housing Jude, yes, but it’s fairly clear that something else—likely something nefarious—is going on. This is further evidenced in the fact that the man seems to have stolen Jude’s money and clothes, effectively making Jude dependent on the man’s generosity for his survival. This is a technique Brother Luke used: he cut off Jude from the outside world and made Jude rely on him for everything.

Joey was the name that Luke gave Jude to use with clients. Jude uses the name now to distance himself from the shameful (to Jude) acts he expects Traylor will force him to do. Also note: Jude, as an adult, is extremely apprehensive about starting therapy, and about doctors in general. Maybe this is because of the bad associations he has with Dr. Traylor. Doctors are supposed to heal people, and Dr. Traylor will eventually hurt Jude (though what exactly he does to Jude remains unknown at this point).   

Dr. Traylor’s question of how Jude “bec[a]me a prostitute,” insinuates that Jude got into sex work of his own volition—that it’s his own fault that he’s “diseased” and on the streets. Jude’s answer that someone “helped” him get into sex work doesn’t do much to correct Dr. Traylor’s incorrect assumption; Jude’s response that “someone” (Brother Luke) “helped” him get into sex work completely disregards how Luke manipulated and lied to Jude to force him into sex work and keep him under his control.

Jude’s life has been nothing but uncertainty, suffering, and betrayal. Self-harm, by contrast, offers him the consistency and control he hasn’t been able to find elsewhere in his life. This passage also touches on another of the novel’s major symbols, houses. Jude sees having a house of his own as another way he can regain control of his life: he’s been taken to so many houses and forced to do so many traumatic things. If he had a house of his own, he could decide what he does there and whom he lets inside.

Jude now expects to be abused by default. He assumes that people won’t help him or be kind to him without expecting something in return. Granted, Traylor has given Jude every reason to be wary of his generosity, but Jude’s assumptions also show how years of abuse have made him jaded and distrusting.  

One main difference between young Jude and adult Jude is his willingness to fight for his life. By the time he’s an adult, he’s undergone so much suffering that he seems indifferent toward life at best, and at worst, and no longer invested in living. Also note that Dr. Traylor, immediately after Jude has informed him that he’s feeling better, fails to give Jude food. This raises another red flag. Traylor seems to want Jude to remain weak.

Traylor’s insistence that Jude must repay him for his “ten days of hospitality” helps explain why Jude is so skeptical of kindness and compassion later in life. His abusers have conditioned him to believe that he has to earn their kindness and respect—that he doesn’t deserve kindness and respect as he is.  

Again, it’s striking to see Jude struggle so fiercely to survive. By the time he’s an adult, a lifetime of suffering, grief, and hardship have left him disillusioned with life and doubtful that anything good awaits him in the future. Alas, Jude’s determination doesn’t do him much good; he’s beaten into submission, and this might help explain why adult Jude behaves so passively around people who hurt him, like Caleb.

The novel revealed in an earlier section that Jude was 15 when he received his leg and back injuries, and that Traylor was somehow involved in the incident. Also note Traylor’s odd remark about deciding how Jude leaves. Does Traylor’s cryptic remark have something to do with Jude’s accident? Does he have something planned? At any rate, it’s clear that Traylor is doing everything in his power to crush Jude’s spirit. 

Finally, it’s revealed how Jude gets his life-altering leg and back injuries. Traylor’s carries out this violent attack to punish Jude for disobeying him. By extension, then, the injuries Jude suffers as a result of the attack are the consequence he must face for exercising agency over his life and challenging his abuser. In this light, adult Jude’s tendency to shut down in response to abuse (as he does with Caleb, for instance) makes more sense. He's been conditioned to feel powerless against his abusers, and so shutting down and waiting for the abuse to stop is the last defense mechanism he has left.

Following his accident, Jude “bec[o]me[s] an adult” and gains a fresh perspective on life. He tries to reinvent himself, on his own terms this time, and focuses on the elements of his life he can control. Abstaining from sex allows him to regain control over his body, which his many abusers have taken from him. Being extremely secretive about his past allows Jude to regain control of his mind and heart. This highly defensive Jude is the Jude that’s introduced at the beginning of the novel, and it’s only after Harold’s advice about “life compensate[ing] for its losses” resonates with Jude that he considers how his present coping mechanisms might actually be hurting him. He resolves to let others into his life, and this brings readers to the novel’s present day; recall that this flashback to the incident with Dr. Traylor began as Jude prepared to tell Willem about his life after Brother Luke.

Jude’s remark about “be[ing] lucky all my life” is a bit of wry humor, but there seems to be some truth in it. In the previous passage, it’s revealed that Jude begins to let his guard down following Harold’s advice that “life compensate[s] for its losses,” and his humor in this passage reflects his relative ease.