Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lincoln in the Bardo, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Unity
Transition and Impermanence
Vice and Virtue
Empathy and Equality
Loss
Summary
Analysis
Writing again in the watchman’s logbook, Manders recounts escorting Lincoln away from Willie’s crypt. As they approached the front gate, he explains, Lincoln saw the chapel and decided to sit inside it, admitting that he “felt his boy was still here with him.” As Manders writes these words, he notes that the president is still in the chapel.
The fact that Lincoln feels as if his “boy is still here with him” suggests that the Bardo-dwellers actually do have some sort of connection to the living world. Although they’re largely unable to act on this connection, there’s no denying the fact that Lincoln, in his utter bereavement, correctly senses his son’s presence, intuiting that Willie has not yet passed on.
Themes
