On What Is Missing

It is often the case that human lives are characterized by what they lack, not by what they contain. Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Lacuna uses the symbol of the lacuna to examine this phenomenon and explore deeper meaning. At the beginning of the story, the author sets up the metaphor through the illustration of the literal lacuna. The symbolism of the lacuna is further explored as both reader and characters experience lacunae in their lives and attempt to fill these voids. This metaphorical treatment of life’s missing elements allows the reader to draw out truths through their interpretation of the novel’s message.

The word lacuna has many meanings in addition to its literal sense; in literature or music, it refers to an empty stretch, in logic it constitutes a nonsensical gap, in biology it means a cavernous structure inside bone matter. The author establishes the literal symbol of the lacuna early in the novel, describing the lonely young protagonist as he explores the coast of the island of Isla Pixol. He comes upon an underwater cave at the base of a cliff, and after research in his stepfather’s musty library he determines that it must be a lacuna, a long underwater cave leading to an aboveground opening in a different location. After building up his endurance, the boy makes the swim and surfaces in a clear pool in the middle of the rainforest. Ancient civilizations were the last to leave their mark on this secluded clearing; the boy has stumbled upon a forgotten place. This missing link is a location so far removed that it has been erased from the collective memory; it becomes an emblem for the gaps throughout the rest of the novel, both in narrative structure and information received by both readers and characters.

A concrete application of the literary sense of the word lacuna is evident in the novel’s layout. It is a series of memoirs and journal entries cobbled together with news articles, letters, and archival notes by the archivist herself. The reader is introduced to the boy in his yellow-painted, ocean-drenched world on the island of Isla Pixol, without context or explanation until the archival note following the first chapter. This pattern continues, the author providing only minimum information and filling the pages with endless details of daily living, leaving the reader to sift through previous knowledge and surface finally with an understanding of what happened several chapters before. For example, the mysterious initials VB grace each section heading and taunt the reader until the last third of the story, in which their secret is revealed and it is discovered that they belong to the protagonist’s faithful secretary, Violet Brown. This act of withholding intelligence strengthens the feeling of mystery and the unknown which pervades the novel, the informational lacunae leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions.

The characters in the novel experience psychological lacunae as they are exposed in hindsight to the realities of their lives and situations. The protagonist Harrison Shepherd grows up in Mexico, where he apprentices to the painter Diego Rivera and eventually becomes a cook in the painter’s household, the same place in which Bolshevik revolutionary Lev Trotsky is hiding and visitors come every day to excitedly discuss and promote Communism. After Trotsky’s murder, the traumatized Shepherd flees to the United States to work for the government and subsequently begins his career as an author. America is in the grips of change, and citizens are selling out their neighbours as the fear of communism seeps into the media, staining the collective consciousness. Shepherd trades his literary fame for infamy after his past communist connections are revealed. Head reeling from this sudden switch, Shepherd can’t begin to understand what happened; the ideals he upheld are despised by the American public. Similarly, Shepherd’s receptionist Violet Brown is blindsided by change and does not discover the answers to the questions in her past until she presses onward in her daily tasks. Shepherd’s persecution at the hands of the American public leads him to travel back to his childhood home of Isla Pixol and unexpectedly drown himself in the deep water near a cliff face. Violet is horror-struck and takes it upon herself to finish the process of compiling his memoirs as she grieves. It is not until she pieces together the account of the underwater lacuna leading to the jungle clearing that it dawns upon her that her beloved employer may not be dead after all, and has actually escaped through that very same lacuna. Both characters are poignantly human in their struggle to understand the world in which they are placed and keep up with the developments happening around them, their respective information lacunae handicapping their judgment.

Lev Trotsky

One thing that the novel does admirably is to throw the deficiency of societal understanding into sharp relief. By contrasting 1950s America with the vibrant cultural palette of Mexico, the author effectively communicates the danger inherent when a culture becomes obsessive and clings to one side of the political story. In the novel, this misinformed society is America, where anti-communism percolates in cafes and splashes onto newspaper headlines, creating mass hysteria and causing brother to betray brother “for the safety of the country.” Shepherd finds this to be a startling contrast to the communism and fiery visionaries with which he associates it. As the character Arthur Gold remarks in the novel, “‘Anticommunism is not very much concerned with communism’” (Kingsolver, 270). The fear of the colour red permeates every home, business, and town hall, gradually plucking citizens from among their neighbours who pretend not to notice for fear of their own disappearance. However, it is evident that few Americans understand exactly which political views they are opposing. Shepherd’s communist upbringing and American citizenship set him up as the perfect foil for the rampant anti-communist propaganda. The effect of the two conflicting ideologies on Shepherd’s life forms a potent reminder of the dangers of informational voids in politics.

Anti-communist propaganda

There exist in Shepherd’s life lacunae in the form of missing relationships. His mother is a flighty, beautiful Mexican woman who moves from one man to the next, always searching for fulfillment. She shows little love for Shepherd, only selfishness as she pursues her own happiness and neglects her son. Shepherd’s father is an accountant in Washington, D.C. and little more than a fairytale to his son until the teenage years, when Shepherd is put under his care and sent to boarding school. Shepherd almost never sees his father, and there is no love lost between them. On holidays, he stays at boarding school and earns his keep by cleaning the dormitories and running errands. Here, it is implied that he discovers his homosexuality and enters into a relationship with a fellow student, the memoirs and memories of which are later burned and buried. Back in Mexico, Shepherd finds a mother of sorts in his employer Frida Kahlo, who mentors him in writing and later sends him to the United States with a gift of the memoirs she was able to save after his room was raided by police. In America, Shepherd lives a secluded, lonely life and encounters few people during his rise to literary fame and subsequent fall. Possibly the closest relationship he ever has is with Violet Brown, his secretary. Human relationships are crucial, and yet Shepherd has very few. This relational lacuna causes him to live a lonely, unfulfilled life.

Washington, D.C.

Through their respective creative endeavours, characters in the novel respond to the lacunae they perceive in their lives. Shepherd’s lack of knowledge, identity, and relationships leaves him with endless questions about the world he lives in. He attempts to unravel these mysteries via his writing. His novels, set in ancient civilizations, explore modern societal themes such as the atomic bomb issue. Although these works propel him to literary fame in the United States, he is less concerned with renown and grasps for understanding like a drowning man. Similarly, Frida Kahlo attempts to fill in the gaps in logic in her life through her paintings. After her tragic accident which leaves her permanently damaged inside and in constant need of medical care, Frida paints many self portraits, some of which are described in the novel. The eyes reveal pain, surrounded by symbols depicting her search for truth. Both characters search for meaning in the lacunae embedded in their lives; they fill in these awful gaps the only way in which they are capable, through their craft.

"Diego and I" by Frida Kahlo

Throughout the novel, both reader and characters struggle with the lacunae they experience through the events of the story. This is represented firstly through the structure of the narrative. The reader is forced to settle for a patchy understanding of what is happening until they later are exposed to the chronological details they were missing. The characters are uninformed of what seems to be crucial information concerning their respective situations and stumble forward blindly at times. Additionally, the lacunae in society are examined through the lens of a person who has seen both sides of the political situation and shown them to be deficient in understanding. The protagonist is also lacking in understanding, as he lives a lonely existence without what are considered “normal,” healthy relationships. Finally, the novel examines how artists and writers attempt to comprehend the world around them through their creative work. The entire story is the symbol of life’s journey; a constant, epic struggle for understanding and meaning. The reader, the characters, and the societies in the narrative yearn desperately for their lacunae in knowledge to be eradicated. This strongly resembles individual lives and larger culture today; the search for answers is relentless and humanity invests all it has into this endeavour. False answers abound; political ideologies, illegal substances, unhealthy relationships, even good things such as family and economic productivity claim to provide fulfillment and erase the lacunae inherent in the human condition. However, at the end of the novel, the protagonist exits stage left with no real meaning infused into his existence. This tragic metaphor for the whole of humanity points to the insufficiency of earthly solutions. The only One who can furnish true fulfillment does not reside on earth. Even though this novel appears to be secular in its intent, it is impossible to ignore the truth made plain through its narrative. God is the only one who can fill the lacuna.