44 pages • 1 hour read
Tom PerrottaThe Leftovers
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Forms of Absence
The rapture that mysteriously disappeared millions of people on October 14 and is the basis for The Leftovers’ plot is a form of uncontrollable absence. The characters were not prepared for the occurrence and must figure out different methods of coping, grief, and acceptance after the event. The novel presents a conflicting notion of absence in the characters of Laurie and Tom, who consciously chose to absent themselves from the lives of their family members in the aftermath of the event, rather than being taken from them. The Garvey family itself becomes a microcosm of this theme in the novel, as mother-son and father-daughter pairs each deal with absence in conflicting ways.
Without explanation or warning, the rapture disappears a seemingly random assortment of people around the globe. For the Garvey family, who did not lose anyone intimate in the event, this type of uncontrolled absence mimics the unexpectedness of deaths that occur without warning. Laurie dedicates herself to helping her best friend try to cope with the sudden absence of her daughter; in so doing, she begins to believe that any attempt at normalcy following such widespread, uncontrollable death is merely an illusion. By joining the Guilty Remnant, Laurie embodies an uncertain surrender that parallels the rapture’s unpredictability as an event beyond individuals’ control: She relinquishes agency, control, and emotion to the Guilty Remnant, allowing its rules to determine her actions. Tom, likewise, seeks understanding in the form of the Healing Hug Movement and the Barefoot People. Like Laurie, he does not see the power of moving on from a tragedy to resume normal life. As a result, both characters choose to absent themselves from their families.
Jill’s complicated grief over the absence of her mother is made all the more confusing because Laurie chose to leave her family (33). As an eyewitness, Jill copes with the rapture more easily than she can deal with the absence of her mother; Jill’s desire through the entire novel is to have some contact with the mother who abandoned her. Her coping mechanisms include making a list of Laurie’s faults to convince herself that she needn’t miss her so much. Kevin, too, focuses more on Laurie’s absence than on the disappearances that result from the rapture. Both Jill and Kevin are more comfortable once they return to the routines of their pre-rapture lives. For them, uncontrollable absence is to be expected. As Jill notes, “The one thing life had taught Jill was that things change all the time—abruptly, unpredictably, and often for no good reason” (247). However, chosen absence should have a “good reason” behind it, and both Jill and Kevin are kept in ignorance of the motivations behind Laurie’s and Tom’s departures from their family.
The Garvey family splits into two pairs that cope with absence and the notion of moving on in different ways. Tom and Laurie, who favor remembrance and not moving on, are both swept up by organizations that ask them to surrender agency and identity to the cause. Jill and Kevin, conversely, attempt to work through their grief by using coping mechanisms in the belief that it is possible to have a future after great loss.
The Female Body and The Messiah
As a central aspect of Tom’s storyline and the Healing Hug Movement, Holy Wayne Gilchrest proclaims that his firstborn son will be a messiah. Of his six spiritual brides, Christine, who is underage, becomes pregnant with Gilchrest’s child. Thus, she is treated as the mother of the savior of the world. Though Gilchrest initially proclaimed no association with religious practices, his branding of his unborn child as a redeemer of the world’s sins mimics religious cultism. He believes his son will fill a role for the world that is similar to that of Jesus within Christianity. The sexism that is inherent in his messiah plot encourages Gilchrest to appropriate the bodies of women, devalue the body of his wife, and influence Christine so severely against the value of a daughter that she abandons her child.
Gilchrest’s main struggle following the disappearance of his son in the rapture relates to his desire for another son. His wife’s hysterectomy makes this impossible, but once Gilchrest achieves a degree of fame for starting the Healing Hug Movement, he takes six spiritual brides in the hope that one of them will deliver a son. Tori’s body is devalued and replaced with those of six young women because she no longer has the ability to bear children. Her womb represented her usefulness to Gilchrest, and in its absence, she serves no purpose since she cannot bring forth a messiah. Furthermore, her lack of fertility speaks to the history of expectation placed on women to bear children, particularly in relation to Mary's role within the Christian tradition. Christianity holds that rather than creating Jesus as a man, as God created the first man, He impregnated Mary, a virgin, and used her body as a vehicle for Jesus’ birth. The female body in Tom’s storyline in The Leftovers continues to be defined by its usefulness in conception and birth.
Although Christine’s body is pampered by the Falks, it is nevertheless used by Gilchrest in order to solidify his spiritual authority. When she gives birth to a daughter, her faith in Gilchrest is destroyed. Gilchrest’s grooming of her convinces her that the body of her daughter is insufficient and, by extension, her own body is also inadequate. Her only option is to abandon her daughter and sever all ties with her prior life as Gilchrest’s bride. She physically absents her body from the text after leaving Tom at the rest area with her infant daughter, presumably running away with the Barefoot People. In this way, Christine confronts the expectations placed upon her body and the association those expectations have with her identity.
Ritualization and Roles
Ritual behaviors as coping mechanisms that fulfill societal, relational, and occupational roles define the lives of the characters living in Mapleton. Nora embodies the need for ritual after grief, while Laurie, her counterpoint in the novel, relies upon ritual as a way of never moving on as she sits in continual remembrance. Both women seek to redefine their lives following the rapture by the roles they play in their respective communities and in their relationships.
Nora copes with the absence of her family primarily through a ritual of watching SpongeBob episodes twice daily and then writing in a journal, reflecting on the memories that the episode brought up (99). She also cycles every morning to give more structure to her day. These rituals work as long as her role in Mapleton remains that of the designated saddest person in town. When she begins to venture into other roles, such as those of Kevin’s girlfriend and the wife of a cheating husband, Nora’s rituals fail to give her the same kind of emotional release. For Nora, role and ritual are dependent upon one another.
In contrast, Laurie surrenders herself to the rituals of daily life as a member of the Guilty Remnant. The role she plays in the organization is a relief to her, as it allows her to separate herself from the roles of wife and mother she played prior to that point. As Laurie’s role in the Guilty Remnant becomes more significant after she trains Meg, her sense of ritual diminishes. She begins speaking regularly to Meg and, despite her vow of silence, speaks once to Kevin while delivering the divorce papers. Ultimately, she fails to fulfill the role assigned to her in killing Meg, severing her ties with both the ritual and the role that the Guilty Remnant gave to her. The illusion of normalcy that Laurie sought to escape by joining the Guilty Remnant becomes an illusion of compliance for her, as she no longer lives truthfully according to the role she must fill. She allows the organization to take her away to an uncertain future after Meg’s death by suicide.
Both Nora and Laurie represent different modes of combining ritual with perceived roles, yet both women are romantically linked to Kevin. His character serves as a static control for both women, as his ritual routines and roles as father and mayor do not change over the course of the novel. The only change to his character is in his new role as Nora’s boyfriend. Thus, for him, Nora’s role as a girlfriend substitutes for Laurie’s as a wife, while he remains relatively detached from each woman. Laurie’s failed attempt at coping replaces Nora's, which seems to offer possibilities of succeeding after she assumes her new role as an adoptive mother to the baby she finds on his doorstep.
