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Chapter 41
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Friends, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
The Value of Art
Loss and Grief
Substance Abuse
Summary
Analysis
Twenty-five years later, Ted and Louisa sit on the beach wrapped in towels, having just gotten out of the cold water. She apologizes again about C. Jat’s ashes, but Ted says he’s at fault too. Ted asks to see one of Louisa’s cigarettes. Like her, he doesn’t smoke, but the smell reminds him of his mom, who smoked the same brand.
When the journey started out, Ted blamed Louisa for being too impulsive and taking him out of his comfort zone. This passage shows growth for his character as he acknowledges that, despite his cautious nature, he deserves part of the blame for forgetting about C. Jat’s ashes on the train.
Active
Themes
Ted’s mom was a tough person with very set-in-stone ideas about the world, particularly masculinity. She never hit Ted, but Ted’s brother, who was older, did hit him. Ted feels like his parents always kept him at a distance, in a room in the basement, so that they wouldn’t have to deal with him. Louisa offers an alternate theory: maybe they just didn’t want him to have to witness his dad’s illness. Ted is surprised and hasn’t considered this. He admits that at one point, his parents did have a love story.
