Previous
Chapter 3
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Self-Care, Self-Destruction, and Self-Indulgence
Isolation
Meaninglessness
Repression
Summary
Analysis
Dr. Tuttle had warned the narrator that a small percentage of Infermiterol users experience hallucinations. Now, aboard the LIRR, she wonders if she is lucid dreaming. She makes sure she isn’t bleeding and decides that everything seems “real enough.” She notices a Bloomingdale’s bag at her feet. Inside the bag is a black skirt suit and a Calvin Klein bra and panty set. There’s also a jewelry box containing an ugly topaz necklace and a large bouquet of flowers. Attached to the bouquet is a note, written in her own handwriting, that reads “For Reva.” She asks the man next to her where they are. He eyes her ticket and tells her that her stop is two stops away. The narrator realizes the Infermiterol has caused her to block out multiple days. In this way, it is almost “the perfect drug,” she thinks.
That the narrator wakes up to find herself on the LIRR, presumably heading toward Reva’s mother’s funeral, suggests that, deep down, she knows that she values Reva’s friendship and that going to the funeral is the right thing to do. The narrator describes Infermiterol as “the perfect drug” because its blackout-inducing qualities align with her wellness goals—she wants to forget her life and her pain. Her description reinforces the misguided, self-destructive nature of her wellness journey: she continues to believe that repressing her struggles will alleviate her pain and improve her life, but that doesn’t change the fact that her problems will invariably rise to the surface the moment the drug wears off. And the fact that she apparently decided to go to Reva’s mother’s funeral while under the influence of Infermiterol suggests that the narrator’s problems and responsibilities continue to affect her actions even in a blackout state.
Active
Themes
The narrator gets off the train at Farmingdale, which is ugly and boring. Reva pulls up in a Lincoln Continental, and the narrator hops inside. Reva is crying. She mentions something about a phone conversation they had last night (which the narrator doesn’t remember making) and thanks the narrator for making it. Reva tells the narrator she can borrow whatever she needs for the funeral. Reva cries and complains about her dad’s choice to cremate her mother and the greed of the funeral industry. The narrator insists that Reva stop at McDonald’s for a coffee, despite Reva’s insistence that there’s coffee at the house. “I came all this way,” she insists, and Reva finally relents.
It’s notable that the narrator has made it to Long Island for the funeral at all, given that she rarely leaves her apartment. But she’s not putting in much effort to actively console Reva, and she undermines the selflessness of her good deed by reminding Reva that she ought to be grateful to the narrator for her enormous sacrifice (“I came all this way.”) The narrator’s inability to summon any compassion for Reva points to her own cynical, nihilistic attitude toward life: even the death of her only friend’s mother doesn’t strike her as all that serious or important, or at least not important enough to redirect her focus away from herself and her own troubles.
Active
Themes
After McDonald’s, Reva drives on, eventually pulling into the driveway of a tan brick house. She tells the narrator she can sleep in her old bedroom—they don’t need to be at the funeral home until 2:00. First, though, Reva introduces the narrator to her relatives. As Reva walks into the kitchen and rummages through the food laid out, it strikes the narrator that Reva, for once, has “dispensed with her usual uppity pretentions”—it’s as though she has “completely shut down.”
The narrator insists she doesn’t feel well and needs to lie down. Reva leads her to the basement. The narrator asks if she can borrow shoes and tights for the funeral. Reva says there’s probably something in her mother’s closet the narrator can borrow, then she leaves to let the narrator rest. Alone, the narrator reminisces about her own mother, who hardly ate any food. She liked nice clothing and liquor, and she’d lie in bed and smoke cigarettes all day.
Active
Themes
Get the entire My Year of Rest and Relaxation LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
The narrator also remembers returning home from college to be with her father in his last days. He was pumped full of painkillers. The narrator pleaded with him to send her a sign, after he died, if there turned out to be an afterlife. He ignored this and asked the nurse to get “[his] wife.” The narrator cried until, at last, her father died. “That’s it, right?” was her mother’s only response. In the present, the narrator considers how remembering this should bring her grief, but instead, she feels nothing.
Active
Themes
Next, the narrator remembers her father’s funeral. She remembers boldly taking her mother’s hand at the service; it was “cold and bony,” and her mother let go of her grip soon after. After everyone stopped by to say nice things about the narrator’s father, her mother scoffed, insisting that all the guests simply liked feeling “special now because they know someone who died.”
Active
Themes
Back in the present, unable to sleep, the narrator gets up and goes to take a shower. She tries to think of historical events and movies that might make her feel sad, but she can’t register any emotion. She thinks back to her father’s death and recalls how one of his colleagues, Professor Plushenko, visited her and her mother at home. He’d hit on the narrator after her mother left them alone together, and the narrator let him kiss her and fondle her nipple, perhaps just to upset her mother. She returned to college after that. Her mother overdosed a week later. She went to visit her mother at the hospital, but by then her mother was unresponsive. In the present, the narrator notes that there’s no point in revisiting these memories, anyway—it’s not as though she can resurrect and punish her dead mother.
Back at school, the narrator’s sorority sisters didn’t ask if she was doing alright, and nobody offered to talk. A few slipped sympathetic notes under her door, but that was it. Reva, with whom the narrator had been in French class that year, took notes for the narrator while she was away. She also asked how the narrator was doing and was frank in her questions. The narrator despised Reva’s optimism, but she was also grateful that she cared. She and Reva moved into an off-campus dorm together their senior year. There, they developed their friendship: the narrator was the depressive, reclusive friend, and Reva was the chatty, anxious one.
Active
Themes
Back in the present, Reva interrupts the narrator’s thoughts to bring the narrator some quiche. Reva observes her mother’s watercolor paintings on the walls and laments never appreciating her talent when she was alive. The narrator remarks, “They’re decent amateur watercolors, yeah,” in response. When she again asks Reva to borrow some shoes, Reva tells her to go upstairs herself—it will upset Reva to go through her mother’s things so soon. The narrator refuses, and Reva eventually relents. She returns later with some shoes, stockings, and a black shirt. When Reva returns, the narrator gives her the ugly topaz necklace she found in the Bloomingdale’s bag.
Active
Themes
Later, after they’ve both dressed, Reva and the narrator put their coats on and head to the funeral. Reva apologizes in advance, explaining that she’s probably going to cry incessantly. The narrator only replies that it would be stranger for Reva not to cry at her mother’s funeral. Reva is anxious about her face getting puffy, though, since Ken will be there. Inwardly, the narrator notes how “intensely bored of Reva” she is.
Active
Themes
The narrator stands beside Reva for the proceedings at Solomon Schultz Funeral Home “but watche[s] her as though from a distance.” She starts to feel bad, as though she is “somehow responsible for [Reva’s] suffering.” Later, Reva points out Ken—who has come with his wife. Reva wonders why she even invited him. She points out other people to the narrator. Later, when it’s Reva’s turn to address the crowd, she prattles off a corny speech before trailing off and dissolving into tears.
Active
Themes
The reception is held at Reva’s house. It’s full of Reva’s middled-aged relatives and her mother’s friends. Later, after most of the guests have left, Reva drives the narrator back to the city. One of the remaining guests asks if it’s safe in the snow, but Reva promises to drive slowly. She packs a bag of clothing to spend the night at the narrator’s. One of the guests speaks vulnerably about her close friendship with Reva’s mother, but all the narrator can do in response is yawn and mumble, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Reva, dressed in a beaver-fur coat—likely her mother’s, guesses the narrator—appears with her packed bag. She says it’s time to go. They don’t talk much on the drive. Reva asks about the narrator’s resolutions for the new year. Reva doesn’t have any in mind; the narrator limply adds that she might try to stop smoking. It’s snowing, and the visibility is bad. Reva tries to talk about death, but the narrator just turns up the volume on the radio. They stop in the bodega before heading to the narrator’s apartment. One of the Egyptian workers comments that the narrator and Reva could be sisters; Reva thanks him.
Active
Themes
Back at the narrator’s apartment, the TV is still on, and a porn movie is playing. The narrator takes an Infermiterol as another porn movie starts. Reva talks about her relationship with Ken and her mother’s thoughts about it, but the narrator hardly listens. She makes vague comments about the porn movie, instead. As though from a great distance, she hears herself tell Reva she loves her and that she’s sorry about her mom. Then she drifts off.
Active
Themes
