Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Transcendent Kingdom, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Science and Religion
Self-Discovery, Identity, and Individuality
Addiction, Depression, and Control
Trauma, Caretaking, and Intimacy
Summary
Analysis
In a childhood journal entry, Gifty tells God that she wishes Nana would die so that the whole ordeal would just be over.
This journal entry helps to clarify some of Gifty’s guilt and sense of responsibility. It’s not just that her love and caretaking couldn’t save Nana, that she couldn’t convince him to get better for her sake. It’s also that she wished he would die, and then he did die. As a child, she believed in the power of prayer, and because her journal was one of her primary means of praying, she felt responsible in some way for causing Nana’s death. But her loss of faith in God didn’t release her from the guilty feeling that her prayers helped cause his death.
Themes
