Absolution

In this section, McDermott further explores Moral Duty and Compromise. Stella’s uncle brings up the phrase tikkun olam (“repair the world”), which resonates throughout the narrative as each character works out what it means to repair the world on their own terms. Tricia is not a natural altruist. Left to her own devices, she is content with small-scale acts of goodness like her former teaching job in Harlem. She balks at forms of protest that are potentially dangerous or discomfiting; in Charlottesville, she dreads attending the rally for the Freedom Riders. Though she sympathizes with civil rights protestors on an ideological level, she does not want to put herself in harm’s way to support them.

Such incidents are emblematic of Tricia’s larger attitude toward humanitarian causes and the passivity in her personality. In conversation with Marilee, Tricia realizes that Charlene has positioned her as her harmless, simple sidekick. Just like in her relationships with Stella and Peter, Tricia is once again playing accessory to a stronger personality. Despite recognizing the dynamic playing out between them, Tricia is still drawn to, and easily manipulated by, Charlene.

Tricia’s passive philosophy on goodness contrasts with Stella’s and Charlene’s more active approaches. Both women argue that there is a moral imperative to help when others are suffering, even when helping poses a personal risk. Stella believes that danger and violence are a natural side effect of social progress, stating her belief that “nothing breaks without violence” (129). Charlene lays out similar beliefs about good and evil during her conversation with Marilee. To her, ignoring people in pain is “a very small evil” (150) that opens the door to much larger human atrocities. Seen through Charlene’s eyes, everyone who turns away from the darkness is marked by guilt. Charlene seeks absolution from this guilt through her incessant charity work. Throughout the narrative, McDermott will continue to contrast these two perspectives.

McDermott also probes the question of whether indiscriminate charity is always moral, furthering her exploration of Colonial Legacies and White Saviorism. This question becomes particularly tricky when considering the power imbalance between white American women and the Vietnamese locals they are attempting to help. Marilee argues that Charlene’s efforts are at best Band-Aid solutions and accuses her of engaging in charity to stroke her own ego. McDermott uses Marilee’s character to raise doubts in the narrative about the validity of charity that does not address the root cause of suffering. An American woman passing out candy and toys to children scarred by America’s use of napalm could be characterized as frivolous, or even ironic. Charlene arguably displays characteristics of white saviorism by following her charitable whims while her husband and peers actively aid the US intervention in Vietnam.

Peter also evinces white saviorism in his attitude toward the deaths by suicide of several Buddhist protestors. He infantilizes Buddhists by insinuating that they are incapable of violence, concluding that the widespread protests must all be catalyzed by communist agitators. He ignores wholesale the reality that Diem’s regime is suppressing Buddhism across South Vietnam. Bolstered by his Catholicism and an unthinking faith in the American government’s decision-making, Peter believes that he knows what is best for the Buddhists of Vietnam without empathizing with their situation.

Tricia challenges Peter’s perspective, marking a notable shift in her character. In political matters Tricia has previously deferred to Peter’s opinions, assuming him to be correct. Her willingness to contradict his position evinces the beginnings of her self-actualization, as she starts to separate her identity from his. Despite Tricia’s progress, the outcome of their argument reinforces the gendered power dynamic in their relationship. Peter respects Tricia’s intellect enough to engage her in a conversation about the topic, but at the end of the day, he laughs off their disagreement on a serious moral question. The implication is that Tricia’s dissenting opinion does not matter. As her husband, Peter’s politics and values implicitly speak for Tricia as well.

Tricia’s miscarriage complicates her relationship to the concepts of family and femininity. Alongside grief, she feels shame, as if the loss of her pregnancy is a failure to measure up to the ideal of womanhood that she has been chasing after. She laments her crossing over from “the side of healthy, fertile women” to “the side of the stumblers, the weak […] who gave their long-suffering husbands nothing but grief and disappointment” (93). Tricia feels cast out from the in-group of ideal wives and mothers, women like Charlene. Her experience with the navy doctor who dismisses her symptoms highlights how women’s experiences and autonomy are undermined in a male-dominated social structure. Charlene’s decision to divulge that she has also had a miscarriage subverts Tricia’s perception of her as the perfect woman and brings the two closer together. Minh-Linh also comforts Tricia, their shared experience of womanhood briefly bridging the race and class divide between them and allowing them to empathize with one another.