Stella Maris

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 2, Chapters 4-5

Part 3, Chapters 6-7

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Themes

The Limits of Mathematics

Alicia, a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas, specializes in topos theory—at the time, a cutting-edge approach to algebraic geometry. This specialization reflects her ultimately unsuccessful obsession with uncovering evidence of the existence of material reality independent of human perception.

Alicia holds a profound belief in the inherent importance of mathematics, regarding it not only as a crucial field of inquiry but as the most significant human pursuit imaginable. In her words, “And again, when you’re talking about intelligence, you’re talking about number. A claim that the mathless are quick to frown upon. It’s about calculation and the nature of calculation. Verbal intelligence will only take you so far” (20). Mathematical language, in her view, gets closer to something that might be termed objective reality than verbal language can. Alicia goes further at times, emphasizing that intelligent comprehension constitutes the sole purpose of life, a goal achievable, in her view, only through the framework of mathematics.

Alicia, having invested three years studying mathematics at Princeton and a subsequent year as a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago, was initially drawn to mathematics by its apparent assurance of predictability. However, her disillusionment grew as she discovered that the operations of advanced mathematics were far from stable. To her chagrin, she observed that the elite group of theoretical mathematicians, navigating the lofty realms of abstraction, often had a precarious grasp on reality. In an attempt to illustrate this point to Cohen, she delved into the lengthy narrative of David Hilbert and Kurt Gödel. Hilbert, a revered German mathematician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dedicated four decades to seeking an axiom that could unify all branches of mathematics. The narrative takes a turn when fellow German Kurt Gödel, in a paper presented in Venice in 1931, disrupts Hilbert’s confident formulations with a logical proof that any mathematical system will inevitably contain statements that are both true and unproveable. Now known as the Incompleteness Theorem, the proof had a seismic effect on both philosophy and mathematics, puncturing decades of optimism in which it was widely believed that mathematics would soon comprehend the universe in its totality.

In the realm of mathematics, Alicia concedes that she’s reached a point of frustration, acknowledging that “you can’t mathematize mathematics” (88). Essentially, Gödel’s theorem implies the impossibility of a comprehensive mathematical theory encompassing everything, preventing the unification of what is provable and what is true. Mathematics, she contends, exists independently of the workings of the human mind. The limitations of mathematics weigh heavily on Alicia, as evident in the ensuing conversation about her dissatisfaction with numbers that fail to coalesce. In this, she grapples with the elusive nature of a discipline she once believed held the key to ultimate understanding.

Alicia positions herself in opposition to Platonism, rejecting the notion of universality, transcendence, and existence beyond material reality of mathematical concepts. She harbors profound respect for Kurt Gödel, the Austrian mathematician who sadly succumbed to starvation induced by paranoia in 1978. Gödel shared her belief that mathematical abstractions had a true existence surpassing the limitations of the material world. Instead, she says, “Mathematics is ultimately a faith-based initiative. And faith is an uncertain business” (66).

The Subjective Nature of Reality

Alicia’s worldview is heavily influenced by the 18th-century idealist philosopher George Berkeley, particularly his “New Theory of Vision” essay, which she encountered in high school at age 12. Berkeley posits that the entirety of existence is filtered through the perception of the mind. According to him, everything in the material world and the consciousness of others cannot be definitively established as existing independently of mental and visual perceptions. His philosophy, known as subjective idealism, rooted in solipsism, asserts that only the mind is certain to exist, encompassing thoughts, experiences, affects, etc.

Alicia follows Berkeley’s ideas to their most extreme conclusions, retreating from reality and denying its existence: “I understood for the first time that the visual world was inside your head. All the world, in fact” (39). Because she places more trust in her subjective perceptions of the world than in external rules, laws, or traditions, Alicia believes in the tangible reality of her “Cohorts”—the imaginary hallucinations that haunt her. She insists to Dr. Cohen that they have a real existence, though only within her subjective reality. Because her romantic love for her brother exists solely within her mind, it is more real and true to her than any phenomenon subject to verification by others. Opposition from society, Dr. Cohen, and even her brother, Bobby, is dismissed because, from Alicia’s perspective, her consciousness represents the only true reality. This absolute relativism leaves her feeling unmoored, unable to trust her perceptions as there is no objective truth against which to compare them. With increasing desperation, Alicia seeks quantifiable truths through mathematical topos theory—the study of the behavior of geometric objects. However, this relentless pursuit merely begets more unanswered questions, propelling her deeper into a labyrinth of existential paradoxes. In this descent, she becomes increasingly convinced that the world itself is indifferent to her existence, fostering the belief that it would fare well without her. The abstract nature of such concepts reinforces her conviction that the world is a product of the human mind. This ultimately causes her psychological breakdown and the development of suicidal ideation leading to her death at the beginning of The Passenger.

Through the character of Alicia and her adherence to subjective idealism, McCarthy masterfully weaves a narrative that challenges traditional notions of reality and perception. In the end, McCarthy’s philosophical depth and storytelling finesse leave an indelible mark, inviting readers to question the nature of reality and the power of the subjective mind.

Love in the Face of Societal Restrictions

Bobby and Alicia Western, siblings bound by an illicit connection, develop a forbidden relationship during their early years. Amidst the chaotic backdrop of their father’s involvement in the Manhattan Project and the creation of the first atomic bomb, they seek comfort in each other, sharing a common disdain for the apocalyptic consequences his work brought upon the world.

The tragedy of Alicia’s life is rooted in the thwarting of her deepest desire—to marry her brother and find meaning in the roles of wife and mother to their child. This passionate desire faces opposition from a societal taboo, a barrier Bobby cannot surmount: Despite admitting many times in The Passenger that he loves her eternally, he can never bring himself to transcend the shame and guilt of loving his own sister. Alicia vehemently rejects this social barrier, as evidenced by her statement “I thought that the fact that it wasn’t acceptable wasn’t really our problem” (161). In this tumultuous narrative, their entangled lives unfold against the backdrop of forbidden love, societal norms, and the haunting legacy of the atomic age.

McCarthy presents the forbidden love between Bobby and Alicia as a potential avenue for redemption despite its fractured and unattainable nature. The theme of incest resurfaces in McCarthy’s earlier work Outer Dark (1968), featuring Culla and Rinthy Holme, siblings engaged in an incestuous relationship that results in the birth of a child—precisely the situation Alicia longs for but cannot attain. McCarthy delves into the psychological complexities, portraying the consequences of societal constraints and forbidden love. This delicate yet optimistic symbol remains unfulfilled in a pessimistic novel, unable to materialize due to Bobby’s aversion to his love for Alicia. Trapped in a world where their love is forbidden, Bobby and Alicia embody a couple unable to bring forth life, a possibility Alicia believes could have redeemed her and given meaning to her existence. After Bobby falls into a coma due to a race car injury, Alicia expresses a wish to end her life: “I told him I would rather be dead with him than alive without him” (54).

Alicia’s love for Bobby, along with her inability or unwillingness to accept the societal restrictions that prevent their union, is closely tied to the theme of The Subjective Nature of Reality. Because the world, for her, has no reality independent of her perceptions, she understands her love for Bobby as real and the social taboo against it as unreal. In a sense, her love for Bobby is the only thing she experiences as real, and for this reason she is unable to face her life without him.

Suicide and the Dissolution of the Self

Suicide becomes an abiding preoccupation for Alicia, explored in elaborate detail as she delves into fantasies of how she would end her own life. In The Passenger, her lifeless body, suspended in death, serves as the ominous starting point of the narrative, haunting her brother, who has emerged from his coma. Her death never leaves Bobby, who believes that if he had allowed himself to love her, she might have chosen to live. The connection between Bobby and Alicia is in a real sense the thread that keeps her anchored to life and to herself. Her love for him, and her sense of responsibility to him, make her real to herself in a way she never quite succeeds in being after his coma. In a therapy session shortly before her suicide, she suggests that she is living for Bobby, or to prevent the anguish her death would cause him:

I’d become concerned that if I died he would think it his fault and that was a concern that would never leave me. A friend once told me that those who choose a love that can never be fulfilled will be hounded by a rage that can never be extinguished (164).

Dr. Cohen’s therapy sessions methodically peel away the layers of Alicia’s suicidal ideation, exposing a yearning to be forgotten, to be completely erased from existence: “That if you died and nobody knew about it, that would be as close as you could get to never having been here in the first place” (147). Her wish to end her life is a wish to dissolve the fiction of the self, which has become painful to her, and to enter into the nonexistence she sees around her. Her analytical reflections on various modes of disquieting in their specificity, envisioning scenarios involving rowing out to sea, taking pills, and descending to the ocean’s depths. In the most detailed account, she provides a forensic description of the pain and misery associated with drowning in a lake, revealing a disconcerting joy and pleasure in contemplating a painful death.

Grieving for her brother and disillusioned with mathematics, Alicia appears fated to meet her demise by her own hand, and the novel captures her resignation toward this fate and the inevitability of her nonexistence. The novel culminates in her most disturbing fantasy—a vision of being devoured by wild animals in the Romanian wilderness. Comparing herself to the eucharist, she derives a sense of spiritual nourishment from being torn apart, visualizing her body and mind annihilated forever, with no one left to remember her. In the opening chapter, she seeks to reassure herself and her therapist: “Maybe as long as you’re thinking about it, you’re okay. Once you’ve made up your mind, there’s nothing to think about” (29). This ostensibly reassuring statement is also an act of foreshadowing: By the end of the novel, she appears to have arrived at the place where “there’s nothing to think about.”