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Chapter 15
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling
Religion and Control
The Pursuit of Love and Happiness
Mothers, Daughters, and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
Jeanette writes that when she began writing Why Be Happy, she had “no idea how it would turn out”—she was writing in real time as she was “discovering the future” and attempting to reconnect with her birth mother.
Jeanette, as skilled a storyteller as she is, is still unable to see how the threads of her own life will come together sometimes. The story of Why Be Happy was one being written in real time—Jeanette was aware that it would be a story in its own right, but didn’t know what the outcome or lesson would be.
Active
Themes
Jeanette still doesn’t know how she feels about having found Ann. She says that “the TV-style reunions and pink mists of happiness” that often surround adoption stories are unrealistic, and that every adopted child who finds their birth family will react differently.
Jeanette makes an important statement about unrealistic expectations of adoption stories—and reunion stories— by admitting that she is still uncertain about her own.
Active
Themes
Jeanette describes having met Ann for a second time in Manchester, one-on-one. At their lunch, Ann reveals that Jeanette’s father had wanted to keep her, but had been living in awful conditions. At the time of Jeanette’s birth, Ann had worked in a factory making overcoats, and her boss at the factory had helped her find a mother and baby home. Ann’s memories are imperfect, and Jeanette notes that “memory loss is one way of coping with damage.”
Active
Themes
Jeanette believes that Ann would like her to “let [Ann] be [her] mother,” but Jeanette does not feel that having rediscovered Ann means she has an “instant family.” Jeanette is “warm but wary,” while Ann blames herself—and Mrs. Winterson—for Jeanette’s terrible upbringing. Jeanette actually believes herself “lucky,” and is grateful for her life, but is afraid that this will “undervalue” Ann’s feelings.
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Jeanette struggles with the fact that Ann is her mother, but “also someone [she doesn’t] know at all.” Jeanette does not feel any particularly strong emotional connection to Ann. Jeanette attempts to “respect [her] own complexity,” and accept the fact that she might never feel “right”—always caught between two worlds, and two mothers.
Active
Themes
Ann comes to London, a move that Jeanette describes as a “mistake.” The two fight, and lament the lack of love in both their lives. Jeanette reflects on the difficulties and possibilities of love itself—the point at which “everything starts [and to which] we always return.” Jeanette proclaims that she has “no idea what happens next.”
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Themes
