Life After Life

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Parts 1-15

Parts 16-20

Parts 21-24

Parts 25-30

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Fate and Choice

A primary question raised by Ursula’s repeating lives and recurring deaths is the impact that any single choice of hers has on her future. In her initial deaths, she is saved by accident, like the doctor cutting the cord around her neck or Mr. Winton, the painter, rescuing her and Pamela from the sea. This suggests that much of our fate lies beyond our control; our survival might well be accidental. Then again, other events seem predestined, as in the multiple times Ursula dies during November 1940 when the apartment at Argyll Street is bombed. Given that chance (or fate) plays a large role in governing human life, the novel asks what power people have to choose or at least influence the course of their lives.

On other occasions, the novel suggests that one’s circumstances are the consequence of choices made by others. The tortuous timeline where Ursula is raped and impregnated by her brother’s friend, nearly dies from infection after a surgical termination, and later is attacked and killed by her husband vividly illustrates the harm that individuals can inflict on others. Later in the book, Ursula’s conversations with Ralph and then Nigel, attributing the events of World War II to Hitler, reflect the extent to which one single individual can influence the lives of many others.

Early on, Ursula begins to explore the power of her own choices, especially to avoid a harmful circumstance. Her motives begin as pure instinct, as when she objects to going into the water with Pamela, or when she hides her doll from Maurice so he cannot throw it out the window. In her cycle of dying from influenza—dramatically compressed to focus only on her deaths and rebirths—Ursula determines that she must prevent Bridget from bringing disease to the family and settles on a course of action that proves successful (and is, presumably, repeated thereafter). Notably, the narrative restricts whom Ursula acts to protect. She rescues Bridget, but not Clarence Dodd; she rescues Nancy from her attacker, but we never see her act to save the unknown girl they named Angela.

As Ursula becomes more aware of the uniqueness of her power, which seems to happen in the timeline where she stays briefly in a clinic for psychiatric care, she realizes she has the power to change the course of history; if she can kill Hitler, she can prevent the loss of countless lives. That she is never fully successful in this aim—her life resets each time—suggests the futility of trying to change certain events, or wishing one could. In the end, the focus turns to Teddy as the one seemingly saved by Ursula’s gift. She has the thought several times in the novel that she would make a great sacrifice to save Teddy, even commit infanticide. Taken together, the events of Ursula’s successive lives lead her, and the reader, to question the limits of human choice and the possibility of knowing the consequences of those choices.

The Search for Meaning

In a novel about a woman who lives many different lives, the question naturally arises: What lends meaning to human life? The novel offers several different measures of value.

Crighton and his gold cigarette case, given to him for his action in battle, suggest that meaning lies in valorous acts. Maurice places his value on his rank and importance in government, as shown by his self-congratulation at being knighted. Ursula’s quest to assassinate Hitler reflects her choice to devote her life to a grand act of sacrifice that can change the course of history. In other timelines, Ursula’s work to help others during the war, further underlined by Miss Woolf, suggests that meaning can be found in service. Hugh, Teddy, Jimmy, and even Fred Smith show this same resolve when they volunteer for military service. Later, in her retirement, Ursula wonders whether her work was meaningful or worthwhile; she fears the plaque she was awarded makes her efforts sound boring. She contrasts her value to that of Pamela, who is the matriarch of a large family, mistress of Fox Corner, and has devoted herself to good works. Ursula judges Pamela’s life and contributions as more meaningful than her own, as Pamela’s influence will extend beyond her life, while Ursula’s life will simply end (only to begin again).

Ursula’s romantic relationships lead her to question what love and passion contribute to enjoyment and meaning in life. Ursula’s marriage to Jürgen leaves little impression on her, and the same seems to be true of Izzy’s marriage to the playwright. Likewise, motherhood, while fiercely felt by Ursula at the time, is not a choice she makes in subsequent lives. Sylvie expresses many times her belief that motherhood is a woman’s highest calling (or so she counsels Ursula). Sylvie supports this declaration by delighting in her babies, adopting evacuees during the war, and nurturing her hens. However, wife- and motherhood in the end defeat Sylvie as she becomes estranged from Hugh and dies by suicide after Teddy’s death. Even if she defines herself by motherhood, the joys are not enough to make her wish to continue her life to be involved in the lives of her surviving children.

At certain points, especially during the war, Ursula reflects on other pleasures that give joy and meaning to life: literature, music, art, and philosophy. Some characters take solace in religion, but Ursula doesn’t share this faith in a benevolent creator or an afterlife. In her 1967 timeline, she arrives at a more existential philosophy: “Life wasn’t about becoming, was it? It was about being” (476). In its near-final scene of Teddy reuniting with his Nancy, and expressing his gratitude to Ursula, the novel suggests that existence is best nurtured by human connections, however they manifest. The fact that, in the two timelines where she does survive the war, Ursula dies alone without close friends or family about her seems a sad statement of what it means to survive in a life instead of deeply and meaningfully living it.

The Tension Between Activism and Acceptance

A novel that looks unflinchingly at the horror of war and covers several decades of a tumultuous century necessarily asks questions about how to regard and interpret history. The staggering humanitarian disasters of the early 20th century leave Ursula wondering how to measure the impact of any individual life on the larger scale, as well as how to care for individual lives in a world where they can be lost so easily. The novel’s unique premise, as with the other themes, affords several perspectives on these questions, but certain philosophies seem to provide more consolation than others.

Atkinson’s characters suggest that one’s philosophical approach is necessarily based on one’s personal experience. As a baby, Ursula is observant and attentive to the world around her, absorbing as much information as she can. At the other end of her longest life, in 1967, she observes the younger generation protesting for peace and realizes they haven’t known war. This reflects the desire for peace as a philosophical ideal instead of a need based on current reality, as it was for those experiencing war. Then again, the cultural value of peace has developed after two major world wars that left lasting devastation. Ursula senses a confidence and self-assertion in these young people that she does not think her generation had, a sense that they are ready to insist on the value of their individual lives and to demand more control over the forces that govern them.

In contrast with the activism of these 1960s youths, Dr. Kellet advises a fatalistic approach to life, introducing Ursula to the idea of reincarnation as well as the motif of amor fati, which is defined as acceptance of what is, whether good or bad. Miss Woolf, who has suffered many losses in her life, takes the position of sheer fortitude: One must go ever forward. Izzy takes the hedonistic stance of embracing material and sensual pleasures, and she encourages Ursula to do the same. While Izzy’s approach doesn’t offer a grand statement on the meaning of life, it does offer a reprieve from suffering.

For all her experiences of war, Ursula never finds anything grand or ennobling in it. Though she alone has the power to go back and change the past, Ursula concludes that life is mostly a matter of survival, of pressing on and dealing with whatever arises. In this she adopts the practical fortitude of Miss Woolf and exemplifies the notion of amor fati, setting aside questions of good or bad to maintain the approach she had as a child: to simply observe what is before her. This approach, it would seem, allows her a certain measure of inner peace.