Little Fires Everywhere Themes

Shaker Heights, Ohio, the real town in which Little Fires Everywhere takes place, was one of the very first planned communities in the United States. When the plans for its development were created in the early 1900s, they were laid out with a motto in mind: “Most communities just happen; the best are planned.” Planning completely rules the world of Little Fires Everywhere, since order, as Celeste Ng describes it, allows one to “avoid…

In a novel where there are no real villains or antagonists, almost all of the malevolence—intentional or accidental—comes from failed or false altruism, and the manipulative instincts behind it. Altruism, or concern for and devotion to the welfare of others, is supposedly at the heart of many of the actions that the characters in Little Fires Everywhere carry out. Mrs. Richardson gives her new tenant, Mia Warren, a job as a housekeeper in her…

Little Fires Everywhere is a book that makes deep and difficult inquiries into what, exactly, makes up a person’s identity. Throughout the novel, Ng again and again makes the argument that identity is not easily sought or discovered. Her characters struggle to identify themselves internally from one another through the places they were born and raised, the people who raised them and loved them from afar, the families they were given or chose, and the…