Previous
Visitation: Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in NW, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Class Identity and Social Mobility
Geography and Human Connection
Sex and Relationships
Altruism
Summary
Analysis
Leah is walking with Natalie and her children, Spike and Naomi. Leah is supposed to be taking it easy after her abortion, but it’s a difficult walk on a long winding road. Eventually, they come to a cemetery by an old parish. A service is just ending at the parish, where the young vicar looks like someone out of history, but the crowd looks more diverse than it would’ve in the past. They stop by a famous statue known as “The Black Madonna” because it is made from jet limewood.
The Madonna (Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus) has typically been depicted in Western art as being fair-skinned. This makes the Black Madonna unusual. Although the Madonna comes from an era when the churchgoers around it would have been predominantly white, it now is a symbol of the increasing racial diversity of its parish.
Themes
