73 pages • 2 hours read
Hanya YanagiharaTo Paradise
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: Henry James’s Washington Square
Yanagihara has stated that some of To Paradise’s plot was inspired by Henry James’s novel Washington Square (1880). Yanagihara became intrigued by the idea of how James’s novel would have been different had marriage equality been accepted when James was writing. This speculation may be connected to the belief, held by many scholars and biographers of James, that he was a gay man who hid his identity. Book 1 of Yanagihara’s novel (also entitled “Washington Square”) shares significant plot similarities with James’s novel and is also set in the same place within a similar time period.
In Washington Square, Catherine Sloper is a young woman who lives with her wealthy father, Dr. Austin Sloper. She becomes enamored with a handsome and charming man named Morris Townsend, but her father is insistent that Morris only wants to marry Catherine for her money. Dr. Sloper does not have a very high opinion of his daughter and therefore does not believe that Morris could genuinely love her. Catherine and Morris become engaged, but Morris eventually abandons her. Catherine ends up committing to living alone, but she also loses a portion of her inheritance when her father decides to punish her for her relationship with Morris.
Yanagihara reprises the plot with David Bingham as an updated version of Catherine and Edward Bishop as Morris Townsend. Like Dr. Sloper, David’s grandfather opposes the match and believes that David is being manipulated by a fortune hunter. Although his grandfather never confirms this, David speculates that his grandfather cannot believe that Edward could love someone like him; David is shy, somewhat plain, and has strange bouts of debilitating illness. While James’s novel features the collapse of the relationship between Catherine and Morris, To Paradise leaves open the possibility that Edward and David genuinely love one another and will be happy together. However, because of the ambiguity of Yanagihara’s conclusion, the intertextual link with Washington Square (in which Catherine finally finds a kind of happiness through realism and accepting a life of quiet solitude) might imply that David is naive and idealistic to risk everything in his pursuit of passion.
Historical Context: History of Hawaii
While much of the action of Yanagihara’s novel takes place in New York City, a significant portion of Book 2 takes place in Hawaii. Hawaiian history also plays an important role in Book 3 when Charles Griffith (a Hawaiian man) reflects on his sense of loss as Hawaiian artifacts are purchased by collectors in New York. The first known contact between Indigenous Hawaiians and Europeans dates to 1778, when British explorer James Cook reached an island within the Hawaiian archipelago. Cook was followed by other American and Europeans, drawn by the prospect of trade. At the time of European contact, many chieftains ruled over different parts of the archipelago and sometimes fought with one another. In 1795, a single ruler, King Kamehameha, conquered other chiefs and established the unified Kingdom of Hawaii.
In the subsequent decades, there continued to be steady contact with Europeans and Americans, leading to the spread of Christianity among many Indigenous Hawaiians. In 1893, Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch, was deposed by a group of businessmen with interests in sugar and pineapple crops, who were supported by US soldiers. After a brief period as a republic, led by a government primarily composed of non-Indigenous Hawaiians, Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898. The region was legally the territory of Hawaii until 1959 when Hawaii became a state. Many of these events, including the forceful ending of the monarchy and the annexation of Hawaii, led to a loss of sovereignty and self-determination for the Hawaiian people. In 1993, the United States government acknowledged that the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy was an illegal action and formally apologized. Hawaii’s political status continues to be complicated, and there are protest movements against water pollution by the US military and the construction of the Mauna Kea Observatories on land that is sacred to Indigenous Hawaiians.
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