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
At Siena convent, there is a pretty young nun named Sister Agnes. While the students take tests, Sister Agnes stares into the distance, a tear shining in her eye; Magda wonders what haunts her. Feeling a connection to Sister Agnes, Magda develops a crush on her. One day, Sister Agnes keeps Magda after class to talk to her about her grades, which have suffered since Magda’s sharpie makeover. Sister Agnes says that she wants to help, and she asks Magda what is wrong. Unable to explain the “tangled web of desires” that led to her rebellion, Magda deflects; the rebellion feels like her only hope of finding herself.
Due to the initial repression of her sexual orientation, Magda now finds herself at the end of a “tangled web” of desires. In other words, her compass of desire has been entirely decentered by her shame surrounding her sexuality to the point that it has affected other, unrelated aspects of her life Magda does not know what matters to her or how she is feeling—a blindness that comes not from a lack of awareness but from a lack of self-acceptance.
Themes
Sister Agnes says that the girls Magda hangs out with are bad girls; Magda has many fine qualities, Sister Agnes insists, and she should lead these girls onto a better path. Swayed by her crush appealing to her higher self, Magda promises that she will do the right thing. Deep down, Magda knows she does not belong with the sharpies; ever since kissing Kerry, Magda has felt that she is the bad girl, worse even than the sharpies.
Magda’s involvement with the sharpies illustrates the difference she assigns between the external appearance of “bad” and an internal, shameful “bad.” No matter how reckless and irresponsible the sharpies are, their truancy brings them nowhere near Magda’s “bad” nature: they are only performing as bad, while she is bad to her core.
Themes
Magda decides to “save” Elise Carver, who is the epitome of a “tough-girl chick.” While hanging out with Elise and her group one day, Magda refrains from joining in on their complaining about someone. When Magda says the girls should be less critical, they kick her out of the group. Suddenly, Magda finds herself at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
In Magda’s social circle, there is no space for a person to negotiate their own beliefs. Either one conforms to the group, or the group ostracizes them. Under these strict parameters, it is impossible for Magda to find herself and form a unique identity.
Themes
Now always alone at recess, Magda takes refuge in the library. Magda reads Gone with the Wind and then watches the movie, developing a crush on Vivien Leigh; this sparks her return to television as self-medication. Since the good movies air at night, Magda sets an alarm and gets up to watch through headphones. Too afraid to express her desires in real life, Magda projects herself into movies where her desires find expression. Movie casts become Magda’s family.
Magda watches television covertly—through headphones and in the middle of the night. This foreshadows her eventual career in the performing arts, but it mostly illustrates how media is the perfect outlet for someone who is suppressing their true self. Through movies, Magda simulates a full life of friends, family, and activity, while in reality she remains lonely and self-estranged.
Themes
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Exhausted from watching movies, Magda’s grades get even worse; then, she is caught shoplifting. Suddenly worried, Magda’s parents send Barb to talk to Magda. Magda tells Barb everything, except her fear that she is a lesbian. Siena Convent assures Peter that Magda’s phase will “blow over.” Magda begs Peter to let her change schools, but Peter refuses. She’s failing school and getting fat, and so he gives up on her. Desperate to escape, Magda tries to make herself sick by standing outside at night in wet clothes, but this only leaves her with weak lungs. In 1975, Magda’s panic turns into numbness: she feels like she has fallen down a mineshaft, leaving the shell of a person behind. She no longer doubts her sexuality, but she never forgets the pain of her social exclusion.
By 1975, Magda’s disassociation is complete: she has suppressed herself for so long that her true self is now entirely inaccessible, as though at the bottom of a mineshaft. Magda’s attempts to get sick—which at first seems to be a cry for attention and help—start to have a suicidal undertone. That numbness then replaces Magda’s panic shows how intense emotions turn to indifference over time. By analogy, Peter’s fear and grief during the war passed through similar stages to arrive at stoicism. In this way, shame and repression create in a person a misleading state of emotionlessness.
Themes
