68 pages • 2 hours read
Amanda SkenandoreThe Second Life of Mirielle West
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A 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
Leprosy’s Social Stigma
The novel portrays the sentiments held in the early 20th century about people infected with leprosy. The first indication of the stigma occurs when Charlie informs Mirielle that the Los Angeles hospital to which she has been admitted has a leprosy patient (whom Mirielle quickly realizes is herself). That an illness would be newsworthy shows just how strong society’s negative attitude is toward it. Hansen’s disease was considered extremely infectious and “disfiguring”; there was even a moral judgment made on those who had the disease. Due to this belief, Mirielle keeps her distance from the other patients on the train to Louisiana and in her early days at Carville. Not only does she fear the contagious nature of the disease, but Mirielle also does not wish to associate herself with others who have it.
The belief in leprosy as unclean comes from Leviticus 13 in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. In 59 verses, the Lord instructs Moses and Aaron how the community should deal with someone suspected of having leprosy. Notably, it is a priest who serves as the medical authority: “And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean” (Leviticus 13:3). The disease is described as a “plague,” and later verses instruct the priest to burn any clothing that has touched leprous skin. The person suspected to be infected is quarantined for seven days, and if the lesions have spread after that time, they are ostracized permanently: “All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be” (Leviticus 13:46). The exclusionary, judgment-filled language in these passages entered the consciousness of Christian society, and even into the 20th century, Hansen’s disease was seen as a sign of sinfulness.
While hospitals and colonies such as Carville served a medical purpose, their primary purpose was to remove the stigmatized sufferers from the public eye. After a short time at Carville, Mirielle learns that the disease’s infectiousness has been far overstated due to stereotypes and fear. Indeed, even patients who heal from the disease face lifelong ostracization. Those who have lived at Carville longer understand this, though it is difficult for Mirielle to grasp. This is the difference between a disease that does not have a social stigma and one that does; a disease that is not stigmatized does not impact other people’s beliefs about who the sufferer fundamentally is. Once they are cured, they return to their lives. Stigmatized diseases cause people to change the way they view sufferers as human beings; that is why even being free of Hansen’s disease will not make Mirielle’s family or community accept her back. Frank repeatedly reminds Mirielle that she would be shunned by the world outside Carville were she to escape. The lesions or other physical markers of the disease make it difficult—if not impossible—for a patient to blend in, and even without them, the knowledge that Mirielle had Hansen’s disease would make her an outcast. Frank develops ways to cope by making jokes before others can recoil. It takes Mirielle a long time to accept this truth and only after witnessing other patients, such as Irene and Jean interacting with the outside world, does she understand that even family cannot accept a loved one who has been touched by the disease.
The Shifting of Identity
Prior to her arrival at Carville, Mirielle is defined by her connection to her husband, Charlie West. Her position as his wife has brought her acclaim, and her life is filled with social engagements and leisure. While the plot begins as this life is ending, Mirielle’s memories show how much importance she attached to her Hollywood life and how central it is to her identity.
The false names used by the Carville patients prove that even around others with the disease, patients do not want to reveal their true identities. Many of them are there in secret; in Mirielle’s case, the public believes she is in a psychiatric institution. The fact that this lie is less damaging to her family than the truth speaks to how serious the prejudice against Hansen’s disease is. To take on a false identity is a psychological coping mechanism and way to protect oneself and one’s family from shame. Living under a false name allows patients to keep their core identities intact while constructing a new identity as a Carville patient. Pauline Marvin—Mirielle’s fake name—is the love interest in the first film of Charlie’s Mirielle ever viewed. This symbolically connects Mirielle to Charlie and her fantasy about their romance. Ironically, though Mirielle attempts to hide her identity by taking a false name, even this name threatens to expose her. Jean’s name is also symbolic: She betrays strong ties to her home and family by naming herself after her hometown, Jeanerette.
Before she comes to terms with her condition, Mirielle is adamant that she must return home to care for her children. However, readers are frequently presented with evidence that Mirielle does not actually perform much mothering. The children are cared for by a nanny, which was customary for a wealthy family in the 1920s. Thus, Mirielle has never performed the mundane tasks of caregiving work—cleaning, changing, and otherwise attending to others’ physical and emotional needs—until she begins working at Carville. Despite her distance from her children, Mirielle views herself as a mother, and as her time at Carville lengthens, she seeks to embody this role in action, not just in name. That she cares for Jean and is ultimately reunited with her daughters solidifies Mirielle’s reinvented identity as a mother.
That Mirielle eventually reveals her true identity to Frank demonstrates that she trusts him completely and that she has shifted her perspective on her life at Carville. By the end of the novel, Mirielle is a new person: Having lost her connection to Charlie entirely, she no longer identifies as an entitled socialite. She has developed a fuller, more meaningful identity via the care she provides her fellow patients at Carville.
Achieving a Purposeful Life
As the wife of Charlie West, Mirielle is accustomed to a luxury-filled life. Throughout much of her first 10 months at Carville, Mirielle’s single goal is to return home and resume her normal life. Her time at Carville, however, causes her to assess her purpose in life and decide what she values most. This is initially prompted in the first letter she receives from Charlie, in which he accuses her of lacking drive and losing her passion for life. Initially, Mirielle is shocked when Dr. Ross suggests she make use of her time at Carville by working; Mirielle has never held a job and cannot fit the concept of work into her sense of identity. Indeed, Irene provides a foil character here, as she explains to Mirielle that her life has been filled with work, first assisting with farming as a child, then later waitressing and continuing with farm work as an adult. She cannot fathom a life without work, explaining to Mirielle that she would “go crazy” (76) without it. Though the reason Mirielle initially agrees to take on work differs from the reason behind Dr. Ross’s suggestion, she grows to discover that she is well-suited to the tasks she is assigned. She is surprised when she is praised by others (including Sister Verena) as having an aptitude for the work, noting that previously she has only ever received praise for her physical beauty or her material possessions. Sister Verena, too, serves as a model for a purpose-filled life. As a skilled nurse, she obtains meaning and satisfaction from the care she provides the patients. Her ability to focus on the importance of the work she is doing and—unlike Mirielle for much of the novel—not become frustrated by the lack of a cure for the disease, infuse her life with richness.
The title of the novel suggests that Mirielle develops an entirely new life at Carville. As the months pass, she becomes reliant on her work to fill her days, so that during the week she recovers from iodine poisoning, she finds herself missing the work, wondering how she filled the empty hours previously. Ironically, the life that Mirielle is so eager to return to throughout much of the novel is a rather empty one. The social functions and occasional charity events fill her days, but they do not fulfill her in a meaningful way. Similarly, though she considers her job as a mother important, she gradually comes to see that, in reality, she does very little for her daughters. Mirielle admits that she has refused opportunities to enjoy her daughters’ presence by playing with them or spending time with them, mostly due to her grief over her son Felix’s death.
Ultimately, Mirielle remains at Carville and makes it a permanent home where she continues her work in treating patients with Hansen’s disease. She has grown to view Carville not as a prison but as an environment in which she thrives. Likewise, Hansen’s disease is a condition that Mirielle can successfully manage. Symbolically, the disease brought about the death of Mirielle’s meaningless life and allowed her to birth a life of meaning and purpose.
