Previous
Pages 9-17
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gilead, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Life, Death, and Beauty
Christian Faith, Mystery, and Ministry
Memory, Vision, and Conviction
Estrangement and Reconciliation
Loneliness and Love
Summary
Analysis
When John was a young man, he married a girl, Louisa, during his last year of seminary. They’d grown up together. They moved back to Gilead so that John could take over his father’s pulpit while his parents took a sabbatical. But his wife soon died in childbirth, as did their baby, Angeline. He recalls the blessing of getting to hold Angeline for a few minutes before she died. Boughton had named and baptized her before John got home. Otherwise, they would have named her Rebecca.
John jumps from describing his childhood to his early marriage, which he hasn’t mentioned before. It turns out that John experienced family life before he had Lila and their son, but his first marriage took place many decades ago and only lasted for a short time. Death and grief have impacted John personally, not just as a minister. This is also the first the fellow minister Boughton enters the story; he and John have obviously been close, if Boughton named John’s dying baby daughter.
Active
Themes
Last Sunday during supper at Boughton’s, John noticed his son studying Boughton’s arthritic hands. While he looks older, Boughton is actually younger than John. His daughter Glory lives with him now, her marriage having failed. John says it would be a pity if Boughton’s occasional crankiness is mainly what his son remembers. In his prime, Boughton was a gifted preacher.
Age changes people, and John wants his son to know that his childhood impressions—like Boughton’s frailty and crankiness—don’t capture the man accurately. Perhaps John is also thinking that his son might remember him as a cranky, frail old man, too.
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Themes
John always wrote his sermons out word for word; there are boxes of them stored around the house, but he’s never gone back to look at them. He’s a little afraid to—maybe he’d discover that he worked so hard on them just to keep other people from bothering him. Somehow, solitude was a balm for his loneliness in those days. Writing also felt a lot like praying—it felt like being with someone, much as writing these letters feels like being with his son.
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Themes
Literary Devices
John’s wife is proud of his hours spent writing and of his books. She was the one who pointed out the sheer number of sermons and prayers John has written—probably coming out to around 67,500 pages, if you add up 50 sermons a year for 45 years. And if 300 pages make a volume, then that would add up to 225 books, which “puts [him] up there with Augustine and Calvin.” John notes that he did almost all his writing “in the deepest hope and conviction,” seeking to be truthful, and that was wonderful. He’s even grateful for the lonely years, even though looking back, they seem “like a long, bitter prayer.” His wife walked into church in the middle of that prayer.
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John reflects on the peace of an ordinary Sunday, “like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain,” full of quiet life. You just need to avoid trampling on it. That particular day was especially quiet, with much-needed rain falling on the roof and windows of the church. Though when his future wife walked in, he worried that the very ordinariness might seem dull to her.
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Themes
If Rebecca had lived, she would be 51 now, 10 years older than his wife is now. John used to think about what it would be like if Rebecca suddenly walked into the church. He imagined her coming back from a place where “everything is known,” and how paltry his hopes and mere speculations might sound to her by comparison. He believes that mindset prepared him for what it was like when his future wife walked in. It seemed like she didn’t really belong there, and yet she belonged there more than any of the rest of them did.
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Themes
John’s future wife’s seriousness seemed almost like anger. He remembers how closely she watched as he baptized two babies that day. He noted her expression of “stern amazement” afterward. Six months later, he baptized her, and she cried. He felt like asking her what it all meant. He never doubted that baptisms were meaningful, but he always felt “outside the mystery of it” somehow.
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