41 pages • 1 hour read
Miriam ToewsA Complicated Kindness
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Black Dresses Floating in the Wind
When she’s younger, Nomi encounters two traditional Mennonite dresses floating away in the wind, which she says looks like dancing. Since Mennonite culture forbids the act, seeing these traditional garments engaged in a display that has such life and vibrancy touches Nomi and comes to symbolize her belief that there is a way to compromise between her slipping faith and her desire for freedom from its constraints. It also represents her mother, Trudie, who could put on the traditional customs when the situation called for it but was filled with a rebelliousness rooted in her desire to be free. When Nomi tries to find the dress that landed on her grandmother’s barn, it’s no longer there—a middle way between the Mennonite faith and Nomi has slipped away, foreshadowing her need to entirely remove herself from the Mennonite community in order to thrive.
The Artificial Town
Right next to East Village is a recreation of the town modeled after its appearance when Mennonites first arrived; this town broadly represents the hypocrisy inherent in the modern Mennonite community of East Village, which is beholden to appearances and The Mouth’s strict authoritarian impulses, leading to what Nomi sees as a broken social structure that values punishment and control, not faith. Everywhere in the community, Nomi sees the divide between the surface presentation and the reality underneath, whether it is the teenagers drinking and partying on weekends, The Mouth’s display of sadness that she notices through the window one night, or the way the community at large refuses to engage in one of the core tenets of the faith: forgiveness.
In Nomi’s view, the artificial town is a simulacrum of a reality that no longer exists (and perhaps never did, as is revealed when she learns of the history of the Mennonites exploiting the French communities around them or when she questions Menno’s faith). She can’t help but see the image of her community as a lie that covers over the real pain many are feeling through the abuses of power that the church engages in.
The Dump and the Discarding of Personal Belongings
It is revealed late in the novel that Ray has been going to the dump some nights to rearrange the garbage, a practice that Nomi inherently sees as a form of control. He rearranges the discarded things of others because he sees himself as a discarded object, leaving him to question his value and, privately, the value of his faith. Nomi sees this from the outside, forcing her to interpret his actions. It’s telling that Ray built a garbage hutch for his family—he sees order as a form of caretaking—and also telling that he does not stop the garbage crew from hauling it away, which can be read either as a testament to his humility in his faith or a more troubling lack of self-worth.
Ray also begins selling or getting rid of all their belongings, which foreshadows his decision to leave Nomi on her own; it’s also symbolic of his desire to stop being a thing that is tying Nomi in place. Ray is a broken man, driven by the schism between his faith and his family and by the dual impulse of letting go of and clinging to what he loves. His relationship to garbage is a telling symbol for the central conflict of his character.
Related Titles
By Miriam Toews
