Absolution

In this section, readers learn about Tricia’s final months in Vietnam. During the latter half of 1963, Diem’s regime is destabilized by the ongoing Buddhist crisis. Kennedy’s administration is aware of the uprising being planned in South Vietnam, and the CIA lends its support to the coup, which ultimately results in Diem’s assassination. Tricia and Charlene have their closest brush with the reality of the war when Charlene thinks her children are inside the bombed movie theater. Though it turns out to be a false alarm, this moment serves to illustrate the escalation of the war, as even the American dependents are no longer completely shielded from its effects.

The visit to the leprosarium exposes a new detail of Charlene’s character: She is cheating on Kent. Once again, she subverts the image of a chaste and dutiful wife. Charlene pursues what she wants despite the gendered restrictions forced upon her. Comparatively timid and dutiful, Tricia is envious of her friend’s apparent freedom, but spending time with Charlene makes her feel like a freer version of herself. Visiting the leprosarium without telling Peter is another telltale sign of Tricia’s character development, as months ago she wouldn’t have considered lying to him about her whereabouts.

The arrival of the strange American doctor (See: Symbols & Motifs) forces Tricia to confront her true feelings about the trip to the leprosarium. There is an air of the supernatural about him, as he appears to shift to fit what each woman in the group finds most appealing. Tricia is both horrified by and attracted to his callousness. He lacks all the “polite restraints” which dictate her own behavior. His story of finding the “jungle slaughterhouse” containing the bodies of innocent victims forces Tricia to confront an image of wartime brutality directly—he denies her the opportunity to look away.

The more Tricia is drawn to the doctor, the less she can deny her feelings of resentment and anger at being strongarmed into a situation that violates her personal boundaries. The American doctor’s presence seems to bring out her basest instincts. McDermott leaves the nature of the doctor’s character open to interpretation. Tricia draws on her Catholic teachings to categorize this ineffable man, suspecting that he is a manifestation of the devil.

If the American doctor is a devil figure, then Charlene makes a proverbial deal with the devil to help impoverished Vietnamese women sell their infants to wealthy American couples, reflecting Colonial Legacies and White Saviorism. The moral implications of this are thorny: Although the women consent to the deals and Charlene insists that both mother and baby are better off, she sidesteps the fact that the American couples are in a position of immense power over the Vietnamese women, who cannot afford to raise their children. Additionally, she compares the babies to “a Dior gown, a Rolex” (219), hinting that she views them through a white savior’s lens, as passive objects to be helped and not as humans with agency. Once again, Absolution shows that moral dilemmas are rarely clean-cut. Reality is complicated and messy, and a seemingly good act can be harmful when viewed from a different perspective.

Tricia’s visit to the leprosarium further explicates her relationship with humanitarianism, raising issues of Moral Duty and Compromise. Though she genuinely wants to help, she is repulsed and scared by the sight of the leprosy patients, many of whom are missing extremities or scarred by boils. It takes effort for her to exercise compassion and tamp down her revulsion. That she is willing to do so at all shows growth in her character, however, as in the past she has turned away wholesale from distressing situations. In her memory of Charlottesville, Tricia retroactively confesses her relief at being excused from attending the Birmingham protest. She feels “absolved” at obtaining the permission to look away from the struggles of others. However, this situation echoes her ultimate resignation from duties at the leprosarium, which she blames on a fabricated objection from Peter. Increasingly, McDermott suggests that hands-on activism simply isn’t compatible with Tricia’s temperament.

In both situations, Tricia excuses herself from the responsibility of helping others when the cost becomes too much. Absolution doesn’t condemn Tricia for her choices. In fact, McDermott suggests that Charlene’s boundless energy for ostensible altruism is a rarity. Most people are more like Tricia, who is exhausted by trying to hold space for other people’s pain. Even Stella eventually retires from her ardent activism to raise her children while her husband works in healthcare. Tricia acknowledges, “To be a helpmeet to such a man is […] yet another way to repair the world” (231), speaking to the idea that doing good often involves a compromise.

In the final paragraph of this section, Tricia reflects on never achieving her goal of motherhood. Though she mourns her miscarriages, she appears to have found fulfillment through other aspects of her life, including her career and her relationship with her nieces and nephews. She has matured out of the expectation that she must fit into a patriarchal feminine ideal. Older Tricia knows what a young Tricia and Charlene do not yet know—that life is unavoidably full of compromises and regrets. No one manages to live up to all their dreams and ideals, and part of growing older is making peace with this balance.