Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Little Life, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma
Identity
Success and Happiness
Friendship and Human Connection
Pain and Suffering
Summary
Analysis
Harold, speaking in the first person in the novel’s present, addresses Willem and recalls the events that happened after Willem’s death. On the second anniversary of Willem’s death, Harold, Julia, and Jude go to Rome. They attend Malcolm and Sophie’s memorial. After the memorial, there’s a nice meal, but everybody is too sad to speak or eat.
Note that the scene Harold is describing takes place some time before the therapy session that concluded the previous chapter. This builds tension, as the last chapter left the reader uncertain as to Jude’s fate. He told Dr. Loehmann that he wanted “to stay,” implying that he wanted to live, but Harold gives no indication as to Jude’s condition just yet.
Themes
A couple days later is the day that “you” (Willem) died. Jude leaves a note that he’s gone walking, and nobody sees him until breakfast the next day. He doesn’t say where he was yesterday, and nobody asks. The next evening, Jude, Harold, and Julia meet JB and Richard for dinner. Then Harold and Julia head to Florence, and Jude returns to New York. He says he’ll see them in two days. As Harold waves goodbye to Jude, he remembers thinking: “Don’t you dare.” Jude has been mostly stable lately, but he’s experienced two setbacks over the past year. Harold has always thought “that life tethered life,” that the longer one lives, the more one is “anchored to [the world].” But after Caleb, Jude became untethered, like a balloon whose cord was cut.
Harold continues to send mixed messages as to whether Jude is alive or dead. On the one hand, Jude seems to handle the anniversary of Willem’s death stoically, though he maintains his characteristic secrecy and doesn’t tell anybody what he did or where he went on the anniversary. In addition, Harold’s observation that Jude is no longer “anchored to [the world]” and no longer invested in life itself is cause for concern. When Harold thinks, “Don’t you dare,” he’s pleading with Jude not to end his life. This scene illustrates the agony of having Jude in his life: it’s a constant battle between constantly worrying about him and setting aside that worry to be present in the friendship.
Themes
But Harold and Julia return home, and Jude has not died, and things return to normal. Jude comes over for dinner the next day, and as he’s washing dishes, he drops and breaks a plate. He apologizes profusely. Though Harold tries to calm him, Jude insists that he “mess[es] up everything.”
Jude is showing more signs of distress and self-loathing. It’s concerning that he equates dropping a dinner plate with “mess[ing] up everything.” Harold, in the aftermath of Willem’s death, seems to consider Jude at high risk for suicide, and so even the slightest warning signs are cause for major concern.
Themes
Then a few weeks later, at Lantern House, Harold goes to Jude’s room to see if he wants anything from the store. The door is cracked open, and Harold watches Jude putting on his protheses. Jude is still underweight, and so the protheses are too large for his body. And when he tries to stand, he loses his balance and falls onto the bed. He rips off the protheses, and to Harold, it looks as though he is ripping off a piece of himself.
This is another red flag for Harold. The violence with which Jude rips off the protheses, a piece of himself, shows Harold what little regard Jude has for his body and life. It’s clear to Harold how much Jude is suffering.
Themes
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Harold knows it’s hard “to keep alive someone who doesn’t want to stay alive.” Even if you can use logic or guilt to convince them, it doesn’t change the fact that they don’t want to be there. One night, Jude shows up to Thursday dinner, and there are bruises all over his neck and face. He claims he fell, but Harold doesn’t know. Jude misses Willem, and Harold does too. And Harold misses seeing Jude and Willem together. JB’s painting, Willem Listening to Jude Tell a Story, depicts what they had so perfectly.
Not only does Harold see how much Jude is suffering, but he also recognizes that’s he’s the person who has caused it: he is trying “to keep alive someone who doesn’t want to stay alive.” He is prolonging Jude’s suffering, and for what? For Jude? For the principle of it? For himself? Harold seems to be finally questioning whether he’s doing the right thing in this regard.
Themes
Still, there are happy times after Willem’s death. That fall, Harold suggests that Jude teach him to cook. Jude agrees, and they have a lesson every Saturday. They go walking after their cooking lessons. When they are upstate, they walk along the path that Malcolm designed. They admire the house from afar, and Harold tells Jude that it is beautiful. He hopes that Jude catches his meaning: that he is proud of the life that Jude built for himself.
When Harold tells Jude that Lantern House is beautiful, he is telling him that his life is beautiful. Jude survived a horrible, abusive childhood and went on to build a meaningful, beautiful life for himself. The house is a symbol of that life, and of Jude’s capacity to change, evolve, and heal.
Themes
In February, Harold and Jude have a cooking lesson at Greene Street, and then they go for a walk. Jude shares that he’s been asked to be his firm’s chairman—and he’s going to turn down the offer. Jude explains that he’s going to leave the firm soon anyway. He might travel instead. Harold quietly offers to join Jude in his travels. Jude agrees—Harold and Julia could meet him in some places—and this reassures Harold.
Harold seems quiet and pensive here because Jude’s announcement about turning down the chairman offer and quitting the firm worries him: Jude’s work has been his life in the aftermath of Willem’s death. If Jude is thinking of quitting his job, it’s highly plausible that he has plans to die. Jude’s agreement to meet Harold and Julia is Jude’s indirect way of reassuring Harold that he has no plans to end his life, but Harold can’t be so sure. Increasingly, Harold wonders whether it’s right to keep Jude alive at all, given all Jude must endure.
Themes
Jude and Harold continue walking, and Harold realizes that they’re approaching Lispenard Street: “The Worst Apartment in the World,” Harold proclaims. Jude laughs. Jude says he has good memories of the apartment, and the mood shifts: they’re both thinking of Willem. Then, Jude asks Harold if he ever told him the story of how he jumped off the fire escape. Harold is shocked—no, he says, he’s not heard that one.
That Jude and Willem’s thoughts immediately shift toward Willem in this scene reinforces houses and apartments as symbolizing Jude and Willem’s relationship. The Lispenard Street apartment might have been ramshackle, but it was the place where Jude and Willem first began to build a life together.
Themes
Five months later, in June, JB calls Harold to say that Jude has died by suicide—he injected an artery with air and gave himself a stroke. Andy lies to Harold and says the death would have been painless, but Harold researches and discovers that Jude’s death would have been horrifically painful.
The entire narrative has been building up to the moment of Jude’s suicide, and now it’s finally happened. Note that while the novel has consistently described Jude’s abundant suffering—his sexual abuse, his cutting, and his grief—in graphic, painful detail, it announces his suicide only briefly and plainly. The strikingly different style with which the narrative reveals Jude’s suicide casts Jude’s suicide as opposite his suffering—as though Jude’s suicide, however painful it would have been in the moment, is an expression not of Jude’s suffering, but of his relief.
Themes
Harold and the others go to Jude’s apartment. All his letters and documents are laid out on the dining room table. Everyone wonders if they could have done something differently. Andy takes the death horribly—he thinks it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t told Jude he was retiring. They both agree that it’s good that Willem isn’t here to see this—but, they also wonder, wouldn’t Jude still be alive if Willem were here?
Everyone feels that they have failed Jude: that there was something they could’ve done to prevent his death. Such thinking attempts to rationalize Jude’s pain and suffering. In reality, though, Jude’s suffering—and suffering in general—evades explanation.
Themes
Everybody dies so young: Andy dies of a heart attack three years later, and Richard dies of brain cancer. In the end, only JB remains. He has a serious boyfriend now, Tomasz. Harold and Julia like Tomasz and know that Willem would have, too. Now, JB is 61. Harold is 84. It’s been six years since Jude’s death, and nine years since Willem’s. JB’s latest series is called “Jude, Alone,” and it features paintings of Jude in the years after Willem’s death. Harold tries but can’t bring himself to look at the paintings.
Nobody in the novel, it seems, can escape death or grief. In particular, the fact that so many characters die young underscores the novel’s central claim that pain and suffering are fundamental elements of human experience. Meanwhile, JB continues to use Jude in his art. After Jude’s death, though, JB become a more sympathetic character: he’s the only one of his close friends to survive to old age. And tragically, the fierce ambition and resultant paintings that once alienated JB from his friends are all that he has left.
Themes
In the end, there was so much Harold never knew about Jude. In the days after Jude’s death, he and Jude’s other friends go through his things at Greene Street and at Lantern House, and they cry each time they find a photo nobody has seen before. One day, Harold finds the CD and letter Jude tucked inside Harold’s bookcase the day of his adoption. He listens to the CD and cries when he hears Jude’s voice. It takes him longer to read the letter. But he eventually does, and he learns about everything that happened to Jude. Jude apologizes for “deceiv[ing]” Harold. Harold has always wanted the answers the letter gave him, but now, with Jude gone, “those answers only torment.” Most of all, he hates that Jude died alone, thinking he owed everyone an apology.
Going through Jude’s houses is so sad for Harold because it shows him all the life that Jude had left to live—but now never will. Harold learns many upsetting things about what happened to Jude in the letter. But most disturbing of all is the realization that Jude felt he needed to apologize for “deceiv[ing]” Harold. Harold tried, as Jude’s adoptive father, to make Jude feel loved and protected, and this letter proves that Harold failed at this task: he couldn’t make Jude understand how blameless he was, and how good. With Jude, Harold thought he would have a second chance to save a son—but in the end, he was no more capable of saving Jude than he was Jacob.
Themes
Harold often goes downstairs at night and stares at Willem Listening to Jude Tell a Story, which hangs on his wall. He asks Willem if he (Harold) made Jude happy. Jude—and everyone—deserves happiness. But we don’t always get it. For Harold, the worst thing isn’t Jude’s death—it’s “what he died believing.”
Finally, the context of Harold’s multiple first-person addresses to Willem is revealed: he’s been talking to JB’s painting of Willem, finding solace in the artwork in the aftermath of Jude and Willem’s deaths. Harold’s ritual of speaking to “Willem” reinforces the importance of human connection. Recall that this painting depicts Willem looking lovingly ahead, as though Jude, mid-story, is situated behind the viewer. It gives Harold some solace to see, in Willem’s happy expression, the delight that Jude inspired in others on the rare occasions he felt comfortable enough to open up to them. At the same time, it’s hard for Harold to see Willem’s happy expression, since it reminds Harold of all the good Jude failed to see in himself: of “what he died believing,” which is that he inspired disgust and pity in people rather than happiness.
Themes
But back when Harold and Jude were standing before, Harold didn’t know anything about Jude’s past, or what Jude believed about himself. As they looked up at the old building, Harold was pretending that Jude was done hurting and scaring him, and Jude was letting Harold believe these things. They both pretended that the future would be happier than the past. So, when Jude asked Harold if he’d like to hear the story about the fire escape, Harold said yes, and Jude told him the story.
Harold resolves to remember Jude for the stories Jude did tell—not everything Jude left unsaid. This proposes that people generally must give people the benefit of the doubt and live with the possibility that they might one day leave, disappoint, or betray them. Jude was too afraid of experiencing more hurt and betrayal, so he shut others out, and this brought him more suffering—not less. A certain degree of blind optimism, the novel suggests, is essential to surviving a world full of so much pain and suffering: life is unfair and suffering unavoidable, so it’s inevitable that we will one day experience hurt, fear, and agony. So in light of this sad truth, people must open themselves up to happiness and human connection when they get the chance, even if this makes losing loved ones all the more difficult.
Themes
