Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Reckoning, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Guilt and Legacy
Morality, Survival, and Perspective
Sexuality and Shame
Body Image and Publicity
Indifference vs. Feeling
Summary
Analysis
To Magda, Poland seemed like a magical fairyland. Poland came to life for Magda when her cousin, Magda Zawadzka, starred in Colonel Wołodyjowski, a movie about the Turks invading Polish territory. The movie opened with a shot of a grassy steppe filled with horsemen. Magda’s cousin played a female warrior named Basia; her tomboy role emboldened Magda. The movie also made Magda feel patriotically toward Poland.
In Magda Zawadzka’s character, Magda Szubanski finds many of her ideals—bravery, tomboy femininity, and Polish patriotism. Similar to Magda’s obsession with The Brady Bunch, Colonel Wołodyjowski provides Magda with an imaginary landscape in which she can express the side of herself that she hides from the real world.
Themes
In old Poland, the noble class—comprising 15 percent of the population—were called szlachta. The szlachta were glamorous people, decking out their horses with what today would be called “bling.” Cousin Magda’s character in Colonel Wołodyjowski embodied the fierce spirit of Polish women, who were expected not only to be beautiful, but also active and brave.
Magda, who feels pressured by her culture’s gender norms, is drawn to the bravery rather than the beauty of her cousin’s character. This admiration foreshadows Magda’s lifelong struggle to find her own form of courage.
Themes
Magda longed to fight for the greater good like her cousin’s character in the movie, but she was also traumatized by the violence. When Magda mentioned the movie’s brutality to her cousin years later, cousin Magda retorted that Poland’s history is brutal. Once, when a family member remarked that the two Magdas looked similar, Peter dissented that cousin Magda’s jaw was more “determined.” Magda worked on making her jaw look “determined,” and she dreamed of fighting for a cause. Privately, Peter resented Poland’s historic glorification of self-sacrifice.
In Peter’s case, fighting for a cause destroyed his sense of self: for the rest of his life, he felt shame and isolation. In Magda’s case, however, being young and undeveloped, she seeks a cause that will define her uncertain sense of self. She wants to feel “determined,” brave, and confident but doesn’t realize the downside of these characteristics: they can compel a person to do bold things they may later regret.
Themes
