46 pages • 1 hour read
Donna TarttThe Goldfinch
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A 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
The Centrality of Art
The Goldfinch centers on the theme of art, which comes to represent security and engagement in Theo’s eyes. After Audrey’s death, The Goldfinch itself is a physical object that gives Theo a sense of constancy: “I liked knowing it was there for the depth and solidity it gave things, the reinforcement to infrastructure, an invisible, bedrock rightness that reassured me” (304). Though his world may be falling apart around him, The Goldfinch remains true, an object he can rely on. When he looks at the painting, “something about the neat, compact way it tucked down inside itself […] made me think of pictures I’d seen of my mother when she was small” (27). Here, there is a direct correlation between the painting and Theo’s mother, both in form and in idea. Similarly, Theo’s work at Hobart and Blackwell also offers a feeling of security. Antiques are another form of art, and Theo learns how to work on these pieces and engage with them in a physical manner. He buries himself in the work, and it allows him to distance himself from feelings of loss. In this way, art pieces act as physical objects that give Theo a sense of security. They serve as stand-in parents after the loss of his real parents.
Despite the positivity surrounding art, it also carries a sinister aspect. Theo comes to possess The Goldfinch through an act of theft. Thus, he engages in illegality in order to gain a sense of security. While he is hiding the painting in his room at Hobart and Blackwell, he goes into a “trance of anxiety” (416). He wants to reveal his secret but is unsure of how others will react. This causes him to isolate himself and makes it hard for him to engage in school and in life. Even after Theo puts the painting in a storage facility, he notes that “[t]o think of it wrapped and sealed uptown made me feel self-erased, blanked-out, as if burying it away had only increased its powers and given it a more vital and terrible form” (490). No matter what he does, the painting has a hold on him. Burying it does nothing to decrease its powers. In this way, the painting stands in for Theo’s grief. Pushing it down only makes it more powerful. In terms of the physical image of the painting, there is beauty, but there is also pain:“Only occasionally did I notice the chain on the finch’s ankle, or think what a cruel life for a little living creature” (306). Here, Theo is like the chained finch, capable yet limited by his trauma.
By the end of the novel, Tartt reveals art as a transcendent concept, something that is greater than people and time periods. It is both physical object and idea. Theo talks about “the slide of transubstantiation where paint is paint and yet also feather and bone. It’s the place where reality strikes the ideal, where a joke becomes serious and anything serious is a joke” (767). It is not one thing or the other. It is neither security nor something sinister. It is both real and not real: “[B]etween ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being” (770). Here, it occupies a very special middle space, not needing to be one thing or the other. Through this middle space, Theo ultimately finds some peace.
Order and Chaos
Throughout the novel, Tartt presents a consistent tension between the forces of order and chaos. Theo continually questions whether actions are fated or random, which brings up questions of agency. He goes back and forth believing in these two forces, and sometimes assigns both randomness and fate to the same action.
This tension is clear through the main plot points of the novel. Audrey’s death is the inciting incident for all the action of the story. It seems as if a series of random incidents brings them into the Met: Theo’s misbehavior necessitates a meeting during the school day, the cab making Audrey carsick makes them walk outside, and the rain forces them into the Met. This seems like a random chain of events that leads to Audrey’s death. However, Theo sometimes expresses the belief that it is his fault. If he hadn’t gotten in trouble at school, none of this chaos would have happened. However, if Audrey had not died, Theo would not have been launched on the trajectory of his life. Thus, it seems like her death may be random and also fated. Moreover, Theo encountering Pippa leads him to follow Welty, who seemingly randomly gives Theo his ring and asks him to steal the painting. These actions also launch Theo onto a very specific path and allow him to connect to Hobie, Pippa, Boris, and his love of art. These acts could either be random or predestined, but they lead to significant personal development.
Similarly, order and chaos are apparent in the deaths of Larry and Andy. Theo says of Larry’s death in a car accident, “I know that his death wasn’t my fault, and yet on a bone-deep, irrational, completely unshakeable level I also knew that it was” (393). Here, he both believes that Larry’s death was random and also believes that he caused it. Likewise, he says of Andy: “Andy’s death was still too huge to grasp—the strange thing too was how inevitable it seemed in hindsight, how weirdly predictable, almost as if he’d suffered from a fatal inborn defect” (470). Here, Theo feels that Andy’s death is random, beyond comprehension, yet also fated. In this way, these actions seem to be both predestined and random at once.
The characters themselves symbolize order and chaos. Boris and Larry represent two of the most chaotic forces in Theo’s life. They are both addicts who are attracted to the illegal side of life. Similarly, they are both charismatic and have the ability to make Theo and others love them. Theo is drawn in by their light and their chaotic natures. They also both disappoint Theo through their deceit and their emotional and physical abuse. On the other side of the coin are Hobie and Audrey. They represent stability and order, providing Theo with a strong foundation. Once Audrey dies, Theo clings to Hobie, who provides Theo with the closest thing to unconditional love. Throughout the novel, Theo bounces between these two sides, attempting to figure out where he himself stands in the scheme of things.
By the end of the novel, Theo transcends this tension. He determines that “life is catastrophe” (67). That is, life is chaotic. However, it does not mean that life is meaningless. He realizes that “it’s possible to play with a kind of joy” (768). He finds a way to take pleasure in both sides of the coin. Finally, he asks, “How can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet—for me anyway—all that’s worth living for lies in that charm?” (761). Even if everything is impermanent and chaotic, Theo still takes pleasure in the objects, pursuits, and people that he loves.
Loss and Recovery
The novel presents the theme of loss and recovery, a tension that is apparent through a series of relationships. Theo’s most significant loss is that of his mother: “When I lost sight of her I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life” (7). Here, he does not just lose another person, but also himself. Since he is so young when Audrey dies, Theo has not yet formed a strong sense of self. After enduring this deep trauma, Theo repeats it over and over again in his other relationships, all the time trying to find himself. With Boris, Theo gains a friend and thus recovers some comfort. However, the relationship also comes along with both emotional and physical abuse. When Theo begs Boris to come with him to New York, Boris refuses and enacts a kind of symbolic death of the friendship. Similarly, Theo begins to rebuild his relationship with his father, Larry. Just when Theo is about to get comfortable, Larry betrays him by attempting to steal his money and also physically abusing him. Theo loses this closeness and fully loses Larry after he dies in a car accident. Through this mirroring, Tartt demonstrates the way in which trauma repeats itself.
Similarly, the theme of loss and recovery is apparent through a sense of place. Tartt spends a great deal of time on her descriptions of setting, and it plays a significant role in the novel. Theo feels at home in the apartment he shares with his mother. After Audrey’s death, Theo is forced to abandon it, relinquishing his physical sense of home. Later on, the building itself is torn down, and Theo says that “the farther I walked away, the more upset I got, at the loss of one of the few stable and unchangeable docking-points in the world that I’d taken for granted” (428). Even though he is now an adult, Theo still sustains the loss that occurs when this physical space no longer exists.
Though Theo gains a new home at the Barbours, it does not feel the same as his original apartment. It is a place where “everything was rehearsed and scheduled like a Broadway production, an airless perfection” (394). Though it is beautiful, it does not offer the same level of comfort as his original apartment. Similarly, when Theo moves to Las Vegas, he finds the new home to be barren: “I was taken aback by how bare it was. Bone-white walls. Stone fireplace, with a sort of fake hunting-lodge feel” (224). Theo never feels truly at home here. However, Theo again finds comfort at Hobart and Blackwell. Though all of the beautiful furniture and Hobie’s objects, Theo discovers a sense of warmth and belonging.
Related Titles
By Donna Tartt
