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
In 1976, Magda’s school puts on its first play, a musical written by a teacher. If the musical is successful, there will be another for which Magda plans to audition. In the assembly hall, which the school has repurposed as a theater, Ralph Poppenbeck—the husband of the play’s author—plays the lead. For the first time, Magda sees how to transform drab life into “pizzazz.”
Performance initially appeals to Magda because of its transformative ability. As an actor, a person can be whatever they want to be, and life can become whatever one wants it to become. In this way, acting is another outlet for expression, but it will prove true to Magda’s personality.
Themes
Magda’s depression lessens, and she becomes the class clown. She tells her family that she wants to drop out of school to be an actor. Using an actor who is also a doctor as an example, Peter advises against Magda choosing one path. The nuns at Siena model academic excellence and lead remarkable lives independent of men. The patron saint, Saint Catherine of Siena, takes the students to a nursing home to teach them social service; Magda is horrified by old age.
Unlike her other outlets for self-expression, such as being a sharpie, acting appeals to Magda’s true nature. This is evidenced by the lessening of Magda’s depression. However, Magda is still not confident enough to shed her father’s expectations for her. Her complete self-expression is now contingent on her shedding her desire to please Peter.
Themes
Magda starts to appreciate her teachers. There is one who praises Magda’s work; but Peter’s praise, which is always withheld, is all that feels real to Magda. There is Mrs. Butler who returns from the summer as Ms. Ajayoglu, having divorced her husband. There is Warwick Taylor, the brilliant English teacher who gives flamboyant readings of literature. Warwick awakens Magda to poetry, the emotional exploration of which had previously scared her. Without Warwick, Magda would not have written Reckoning.
Magda’s appreciation for her teachers is retrospective: she recognizes the influence they had on her as an adult, while writing her memoir. When she was in school, though, Magda’s perspective was skewed by the belief that only Peter’s approval matters. By the time Magda writes her memoir, she has “reckoned” with her and her father’s relationship, and she sees the value of views other than his.
Themes
Magda’s chemistry teacher, Sister Mary, makes the students stand on the alternating tiles of the lab floor. When the students start to take advantage of this quirk by rearranging themselves, Sister Mary goes on leave, and Miss Carter replaces her. Because of her parents’ political indecision, it was Miss Carter who first spurred Magda into political action, telling her of the dangerous biproducts of uranium. Soon after, Magda takes a train into the city and joins a march to protest uranium mining. The sound of thousands of united voices fills Magda with a spiritual fervor.
Magda’s mental health improves when she participates in the community and forms beliefs centered around causes she believes in. Not only was Croydon isolating because of its rural nature, but Magda’s parents’ attitude of removing themselves from the concerns of the world further influenced Magda’s loneliness. Diversion through cause and community restores a sense of normalcy and connection to Magda.
Themes
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Destroying her lifelong dream with one gut instinct, Magda drops sciences and enrolls in humanities. Although Peter reacts with silence, Magda feels that this habit of escaping came from him. By 12th grade, Magda has a group of friends. Obsessed with Maggie Smith’s performance of Miss Jean Brodie, Magda nicknames her friend group “Warwick’s gels” (girls, with a Scottish accent). When Warwick decides to direct Salad Days, a musical about a magical piano, Magda is cast as a middle-aged dowager. Warwick holds the cast to high standards of perfection. When the school buses boys in for the male roles, Magda meets a nerdy boy whom she is shocked, years later, to see perform a dark comedy routine.
In going against Peter’s wishes, Magda is actually emulating him. Her rebellion forces Peter to understand that he can’t control the legacy that will pass from him to Magda and determine her character. In fact, Peter’s cold silence might not be disappointment that Magda is deviating from him, but rather disappointment that she is in fact becoming more like him, taking to “escaping,” or quitting, her endeavors. In this light, Peter’s harsh parenting could be in an effort to save Magda from his own flaws.
Themes
On opening night, Magda steps onto the stage and feels the birth of her “creative self”; her sense of belonging is restored. When Peter sees Magda, he exclaims that she looks like Jadwiga, and asserts that Magda has “got It.” After the show, both Magda’s parents praise her humor and her performance.
The fact that Magda looks like Jadwiga when she performs seems to save her relationship with Peter. Although Magda is not carrying out his dreams, she is at least carrying out the legacy of an ancestor.
Themes
Finally, Magda is better at something than Peter, who had no sense for humor. Instinctively, Magda protects her acting dream from Peter, fearing that he will thwart it; she plans to have Warwick mentor her to get into acting school. For three weeks before exams, Magda shuts herself in her room and studies European History, which she had been failing since rehearsals for the play began.
At this point, Magda has learned to set and follow dreams apart from Peter. What is more, she realizes that her success in anything she chooses to do is contingent on opposing herself to Peter. This does not stop Peter’s influence over Magda—instead, it makes the influence a negative one.
Themes
Magda is unable to hide the word “lesbian”—which feels like a slur or insult—any longer; she goes to Scoresby where Barb now lives with her husband and baby. Making Barb promise not to tell Margaret or Peter, Magda comes out to her sister about her sexuality. Barb asks if Magda knows why she’s a lesbian, but she says that she still loves her. Magda feels less alone and as though she has escaped the death penalty.
Magda does not come out about her sexuality to Barb out of newfound confidence and self-acceptance, but rather out of the inability to hold the knowledge in any longer. She still considers her sexuality a dirty secret, and she tells her sister out of the same discomfort that makes people end up spilling secrets they’ve sworn to keep.
Themes
Magda goes to Warwick’s flat in South Yarra to start her acting mentorship, and her new life shimmers before her. When she reaches the flat, a note from Warwick informs her that something came up; she never hears from Warwick again. Magda’s exam results (including miraculous top marks in European history) get her into the Arts program at Melbourne University.
Magda’s acceptance into Arts at a university signals a clear end to her aspirations of being a doctor. Her teachers and parents can no longer view her creativity as a “phase.” In pursuing the arts, Magda is developing the confidence to shape her own life.
Themes
