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Pages 3-4
Themes
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
John hears his wife coaxing his son to sleep in the next room. He can’t make out the words but thinks his wife’s singing voice is beautiful. She just laughs when he tells her that. He reflects that it’s hard to tell what’s beautiful anymore. He remembers seeing two “decent rascally young fellows” smoking and laughing in the sunshine the other day, and thinking the sight was beautiful. It made him wonder where laughter comes from, and what it gets out of a person’s system—like crying, you have to laugh until you’re done.
Thinking about his unexpected marriage and fatherhood draws John’s attention to his wife’s voice in the next room, and from thinking about her beautiful voice, he begins to reflect on beauty in general—something he does a lot throughout the novel. By saying that it’s hard to tell what’s beautiful anymore, John implies that in his old age, he sees beauty in places where he might not have recognized it before. He even sees it in young men joking around and enjoying life. John muses that laughter is cathartic in some way, like crying. Though he doesn’t completely understand the nature of laughter, John finds it beautiful. It seems that the more mystery John sees in life, the more beauty he finds, too.
Themes
John reflects that the young men quieted down when they saw him walking by, and that he wished, as on other occasions, that he could tell them he enjoys a good joke. But he knows from experience that people prefer that ministers stay “a little bit apart.” It’s the strangest thing about his life as a minister—the way people change the subject when you’re around. And yet, in private, people reveal incredible things. It goes to show that there’s a lot beneath life’s surface—“malice and dread and […] so much loneliness.”
John observes that he enjoys a good laugh as much as anyone, but that people generally put ministers on a pedestal, as if they’re untouched by everyday pleasures like humor. Though John doesn’t agree with that view, he also implies that this sense of separation allows people to unburden themselves to ministers about their struggles and pain. This glimpse beneath the surface of life—and of other people—becomes a key theme in John’s ministry.
Themes
John’s grandfather on his mother’s side was a preacher, and his father’s father and grandfather, too. Such a life came naturally to them, and they were good people. But John regrets that he’s failed to learn from them to control his temper. He warns his son to watch for the same tendency in himself, because anger is terribly destructive.
Themes
John says he’s going to be candid now. He doesn’t mean his father any disrespect, and he knows his father always acted according to his principles. But somehow his way of acting on his principles could be disappointing to people. And John knows for a fact that he disappointed his father, too. Yet they both meant well by each other. He observes that “you can know a thing to death and be […] completely ignorant of it.”
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John’s point in saying this is that a regretful person will assume you’re angry at them, even if you’re just quietly going about your life. They can make you doubt yourself, which is a waste of time. John regrets not figuring this out earlier in life. Just thinking about it now makes him feel irritated, which he realizes is a form of anger.
Themes
John observes that a benefit of a religious vocation is that it helps one concentrate, to understand one’s obligations and what one can ignore. This is a big part of whatever wisdom he has to offer. He notes that his son has blessed their home for almost seven years, late in John’s life. It happened too late for John to do anything to provide for his son and his wife. He thinks and prays about this a lot.
Themes
