Everything Is Illuminated

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2002

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapters 16-18

Chapters 19-21

Chapters 22-24

Chapters 25-26

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Water

Water is a recurrent motif throughout Everything is Illuminated. Its ongoing, ever-changing nature represents a connection to the past, the thread that runs through generations. A passage in The Book of Recurrent Dreams recounts a dream about water: “In the water I saw my father’s face, and that face saw the face of its father, and so on, and so on, reflecting backward to the beginning of time, to the face of God, in whose image we were created” (48). This connection to the past echoes the eternal nature of water. It is an unstoppable force, and one that is essential to our lives. Water shapes the landscape as the past—and our ancestors—shape our daily lives.

Water can also represent something central and essential that defines one’s life, as the Brod defines Trachimbrod. The river Brod is the town’s defining feature, and fundamental to its inhabitants' daily lives. It is also host to the most famous event in the shtetl’s history—the overturning of Trachim’s cart and the birth of Brod. Brod’s birth, rising from the river alone, is mysterious, seemingly miraculous, and marks a new era or rebirth of the town. At the other end of the narrative, the Brod features prominently in the Nazi attack on Trachimbrod. In a dream that predicts the Nazi bombing and assault, the people of the shtetl jump into the water to escape. They look to the river that is such a fundamental part of their lives to save them from disaster.

Illumination

Both Jonathan's and Alex’s narratives use the motif of illumination throughout the novel. Most obviously, the word “illumination,” or some variation, is used by Alex as a synonym for light. This usage is ostensibly just part of Alex’s quirky thesaurus-based English. But by having Alex use the word repeatedly throughout the narrative, Safran Foer weave this symbol throughout the novel, beginning with the title. With this repetition, the idea of illumination and the different things it can represent are kept at the front of the reader’s mind.

Illumination can be about exposure—literally shining a light on something uncomfortable, like Grandfather’s terrible choice being exposed. Illumination can also refer to enlightenment or a new understanding. When Alex hears his Grandfather’s story, aspects of Grandfather’s behavior that he has never understood suddenly make sense. Similarly, when Jonathan grows up and understands why his grandmother lifts him, a truth has been illuminated for him that changes his understanding of her. At the end of the novel, when Grandfather writes his letter to Jonathan in the “luminescence of the television” (297) we understand that he is experiencing his own moment of illumination, where he thinks he sees a way to save Alex and Igor.

String

Images of string are woven throughout the novel. This motif is first introduced in Chapter 2, when “wandering snakes of white string” (14) rise out of the water with the flotsam of Trachim’s possessions. Safran Foer uses string to explore the concept of memory and the complex ways it can affect our lives. In the text, string often represents connection, either in the present, as with the Trachimday festival tradition of running string across the town between the connecting points of people’s homes and possessions, or connection to the past, as in Brod’s dream, where she “traces the causal string back” (98).

Yet Safran Foer also highlights the darker side to these strings that connect to the past, noting that they can also tangle and inhibit movement in the present. Just as threads can make a tapestry, they can create a web. As Alex’s grandfather notes, in order for Alex and Igor to move forward with their lives, “they must cut all the strings, yes?” (297) One of the clearest examples of this interpretation is Sofiowka’s attempt to remember something by tying a string around his finger. Once he does so, he fears forgetting the thing that the string represents so much that he ties another string to remind himself of the string. Here, Safran Foer illustrates the way that memory can literally immobilize and bind us, as Sofiowka binds himself with string to the point where he cannot move:

[H]e tied one around his index finger to remember something terribly important, and fearing he would forget the index finger, he tied a string around his pinky, and then one from waist to neck, and fearing he would forget this one, he tied a string from ear to tooth to scrotum to heel, and used his body to remember his body, but in the end could remember only the string (23).

This metaphor is dealt with more explicitly when Safran Foer writes of the children of trauma survivors, comparing their inherited memories to string: “Their strings were not even their own, but tied around them by parents and grandparents—strings not fastened to anything, but hanging loosely from the darkness (280).” For the victims of generational trauma, the string is the echo of the memory, even when the event itself has been forgotten or lost.