46 pages • 1 hour read
Russell BanksThe Sweet Hereafter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
A Loss of Innocence: From Childhood to Adulthood
In the first chapter, which Dolores Driscoll narrates, she describes what separates children from adults. She has been in a unique position, as the bus driver, to observe the children of Sam Dent and how they interact with each other. Although the children are copying the adults around them—practicing at speaking in the way that adults do—they also can explore and experiment in an open, freemanner. Dolores says that, between children, there is no serious fear of hurt or injury, as is the case with adults. Later, Dolores will observe that children have a special kind of value and meaning and that a town that loses its children “comes undone.” It is as if the entire town experiences a loss of innocence when the accident occurred.
Nichole Burnell’s chapter also explores the theme of the loss of innocence. Nichole has, in many ways, already lost her innocence because of her father’s abuse. But she only begins to reckon with that abuse, take control of her life, and start to think like an adult after the accident. This is Nichole’s transition from child to adult. Prior to the accident, she was largely thoughtless. Beautiful and popular, she had no deeper self. After the accident, when she becomes physically limited, she faces what her father has done directly, instead of avoiding it, and also decides to upend the lawsuit. Nichole’s understanding and sophistication evolve, and she leaves behind the excuses, vapidity, and avoidance that characterized her teenage life before the accident.
Zoe, Mitchell Stephens’ daughter, has also lost her innocence. Stephens remembers when Zoe was an infant and contrasts that with her adult self. Stephens describes how American culture has taken his child away from him. Zoe is a victim of that culture, Stephens asserts. As an adult, Zoe has no morals, is manipulative, and has a substance use disorder. She’s entirely lost to Stephens, ultimately, whether or not she has HIV, which she claims to.
Ansel describes the incident in Jamaica, where he almost lost his daughter, Jessica, as the end of his own adolescence. Prior to that event, he smoked a lot of marijuana and considered the kinds of horror he experienced in Vietnam to be limited to a specific time and place. The incident in Jamaica makes Ansel realize how vulnerable his family is and how death and pain can reach him not just in Jamaica but wherever he may be. At that point, Ansel takes on real adult responsibility for his children and wife, something he had not done in a mature way prior. Unable to protect his wife and children, Ansel loses his innocence entirely, retreating into despair and alcoholism.
Making Sense of Tragedy Through Causation and Blame
The novel demonstrates that there are a myriad of ways to deal with tragedy and loss. Some, like Risa, claim they saw it coming, so that tragedy does arrive as completely unpredictable. Stephens denies that there are any such things as accidents. He insists that everything has a cause; Wanda Otto agrees with him. There must be, Stephens insists, a rational explanation for tragedy. This allows him to believe that, if certain action is taken, namely, punishing those responsible, the accident can be prevented from happening again. There must be, Stephens asserts, someone to blame.
Ultimately, the town, because of Nichole’s lie, blames Dolores. It matters less to the collective understanding that the truth be known than that there is someone to blame. Several characters, including Ansel, Nichole Burnell, and Abbott, suggest that there is no one to blame, and that it was an accident, pure and simple. Abbott says that blame “creates comprehension.” In his chapter, Ansel describes how people twisted themselves into knots after the accident, in order to deny it. He says that people generally believe the lie that death can be postponed indefinitely because they cannot face the fact of death. Ultimately, Banks suggests that life is not logical, that accidents happen, and that tragedy does not always have a root cause. But the characters in the novel cannot accept the unpredictability, severity, and finality of death. Instead, they look for mental constructs, like “blame” and “justice” to help redirect their anger, pain, and frustration, rather than having to experience those feelings.
Becoming Ghostlike: Grief as a Form of Death
Many characters, and Billy Ansel in particular, describe how they became ghostlike after the accident. They are in some form of purgatory, Ansel says, no longer alive but also unable to reach where the dead family members have gone. Dolores, too, describes the experience of the accident as a kind of death. Certainly the novel suggests that after a traumatic accident, people change, and therefore each person undergoes a kind of death in the loss of who they used to be. The old self has died because, as Ansel says, parents who lost a child are not new people, though they are different people. Indeed, the people of Sam Dent have lives that have “two meanings, one before the accident and one after” (58). Part of this theme of a kind of living death is that Ansel feels more alive when he remembers and lives in memories of his wife and children than he does continuing life without them after they are gone. The post-accident world feels unreal or imagined, a kind of waking nightmare.
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By Russell Banks
