Love, Theoretically

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 6

Chapters 7-11

Chapters 12-16

Chapters 17-22

Chapter 23-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Personal Impacts of People-Pleasing

The impacts of people-pleasing form a central theme of Love, Theoretically, especially as they pertain to the effects Elsie’s personality switching has on her personal life and self-esteem. Elsie has been a chronic people-pleaser for nearly two decades at the beginning of the novel, and she has perfected the art of assessing what a person wants from her and becoming that version of herself. Elsie mentions that her Halloween costume throughout middle school was the duality of light, which she loved because she knew that “light could be two different things at once, depending on what others wanted to see” (15). Much like the duality of light, there are numerous different versions of Elsie that she performs, thinking it is for the benefit of others and that it will get others to like her better. As few people notice that Elsie is different around everyone she meets, her APE strategy has little negative impact on anyone but herself until Jack Smith sees two of her different personalities in two disparate settings. Not only does Jack’s discovery of her people-pleasing and personality-switching jeopardize her career, but it also forces Elsie to question her intentions behind the act. Though Elsie considers her actions code-switching and thinks it helps those around her, Jack is the first one to tell her that “Code-switching has nothing to do with erasing who you are and twisting what’s left of you [...] Every single one of your interactions is a lie” (108).

Elsie never thought her APE protocol hurt anyone, but the more she spends time with Jack, who is the only one to constantly call her out for pretending to be someone else, the more Elsie realizes how much of an impact her instinct to change her true self has had on her grasp of who she really is. Elsie hears Jack’s question about what she really wants repeated in her head throughout the novel, and she comes to realize that she is not actually sure. By constantly pretending to be someone else and trying to do what others want of her, Elsie has lost sight of who she truly is and what she actually wants. Additionally, much like with her job as an adjunct, Elsie is exhausted by this continual performance, as seen whenever she lets her mask drop around Jack and makes him want to take care of her so badly. Toward the end of the novel, it is also revealed how much her people-pleasing has hindered her career and relationships. As she cannot stand up to Laurendeau and only acts as the “Elise” he wants her to be, she does not question his judgment and does not suspect him to be hiding anything from her. Similarly, Jack is too convinced that she can’t make important decisions for herself and that she is so swayed by others’ opinions that he does not tell her about Laurendeau at all. Overall, it is only once Elsie starts to realize how much she has lost by pretending to be someone else that she is able to stand up for herself and grow as a person.

The Unnecessary Politicization of Academia

Before she begins to interview for the MIT tenure-track position, Monica warns Elsie about the “politics that are currently at play” (43) in the physics department, particularly in regard to the petty feud between theorists and experimentalists. However, Monica has made the hiring process for this position even more political than it initially was by inviting Elsie to interview. The hiring process for this position was intended to be relatively straightforward, as Jack was tasked with hiring more experimentalists, and he and the hiring committee specifically had George in mind for a vacant professorship. Though the divide between theorists and experimentalists did not influence the fact that George was always going to be hired, Monica stoked the fire because she wanted to hire a theorist instead of an experimentalist, even if the other professors attempted to dissuade her.

Though Elsie’s bad-faith interview is a prime example of how much departmental politics have tainted academia, several other unnecessarily politicized aspects of academia disadvantage Elsie throughout the novel. When Jack and Elsie overhear two MIT professors making sexist remarks, like discussing how “she’ll get pregnant in a couple of years, and [they]’ll have to teach her courses” (63), Hazelwood illustrates how misogyny has become institutionalized within academia and STEM in particular and how it can influence hiring of certain candidates over others. Jealousy and revenge are things Elsie and other characters must deal with throughout the novel and have a disproportionate impact on academia. Jack claims that Laurendeau wanted to control Grethe and is doing the same thing to Elsie by isolating her and denying her opinions of her own. Whether also influenced by sexism or by his personal hunger for power and control, it is unrelated to Elsie’s and Grethe’s capabilities as physicists. Revenge is a recurring motif and strong undercurrent of Love, Theoretically, especially as it relates to the men in Elsie’s life. After she has been rejected for the MIT job, Laurendeau asks Elsie, “Elise, you want Smith-Turner to get his comeuppance just as much as I do, don’t you?” (205), showing how much she has been pressured to hate Jack and how important revenge is to her mentor. Though Jack recognizes that revenge did not do anything to make him feel better, he still benefits professionally from his act of teenage revenge. However, unlike with Laurendeau, Jack’s revenge by writing the article that got Laurendeau fired was not a first step but a last resort, as Jack tried to report Laurendeau and was told he couldn’t. Regardless, revenge is what drives the careers of both of these men at one point or another and influences Elsie as well.

Romantic Love as a Path to Self-Worth

In the genre of contemporary romance, romantic love always leads to self-love and a greater sense of self for the characters involved. It is very common that as the romantic leads become closer with one another in romantic comedies such as Love, Theoretically, they get more of a grasp of what they want out of their relationships. In addition, they also learn what they want out of their own lives individually and come to understand themselves as they begin to understand one another. When they first start dating, Jack tells Elsie they only can under the condition of no pretenses, as he says, “No pretending you’re someone else. No trying to be whatever you think it is that I want” (202). Whenever he can sense one of Elsie’s lies coming, he calls her out for it, and soon she doesn’t have to try to be her true self around him. Repeatedly throughout the novel, Jack asks Elsie what she wants, and the question echoes through her head numerous times until she realizes, after asking him to give her space, that she is finally saying no to being the Elsie other people want. Though she feels incredibly sad after making Jack leave, she thinks, “Maybe I’m not stumbling through someone else’s life. Maybe I’m just living mine for the first time” (321), alluding to a major change in her character in the novel.

Though Elsie experiences the most change during her relationship with Jack, she also influences him to grow as a person as well. At the beginning of the novel, Jack ignores the harm he has done to others while benefiting from the notoriety resulting from his divisive article. He struggles particularly with lies, as it is what made him feel so terrible within his own family, and he takes this out on Elsie in the beginning of Love, Theoretically. However, Elsie shows him how much what he thinks are lies are really just ways of protecting others and getting them to stay, a tactic he implements when he conceals the truth about Laurendeau from her. Elsie’s first act of standing up for herself is when she points out the hypocrisy of this to Jack while also showing him the true impact of his silence surrounding his article. By the end of the novel, their relationship with one another has led them both to come to terms with how complex the issues of code-switching and dishonesty actually are and they can be completely honest with each other. In the epilogue, Elsie knows that she is still “a work in progress” but can also acknowledge that “Jack knows all of this, and he loves me. Not anyway, but because” (341), showing how the love Jack and Elsie share has helped them both look past their own insecurities and flaws and made them each believe that they are worthy of love.