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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Reckoning, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Guilt and Legacy
Morality, Survival, and Perspective
Sexuality and Shame
Body Image and Publicity
Indifference vs. Feeling
Summary
Analysis
The following year, Magda enrolls in a drama class. During an acting exercise, Magda—who feels safer in theory rather than practice—panics and drops the class. She moves into a house with friends; while her friends smoke pot, Magda entertains them with impressions. She goes to shows at comedy clubs. Magda enjoys the new wave music of her generation; “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone you Shouldn’t’ve)” becomes her anthem.
Magda’s attitude toward her drama class is like her attitude toward her sexuality: she is comfortable with the idea that she is a drama artist, but when it comes to actually performing, she loses all of her confidence.
Themes
When her friend Pete teaches himself to make osso buco, Magda is inspired; in a time when leftist politics are oppressively strict, Pete’s feat—owning his bourgeois taste in food—is a declaration of independence. Magda realizes that knowledge is power. In a post-Holocaust world, where humanity has committed its most inconceivable crimes, the desire to “cure humanity of the human condition” prevails. Peter—who says that the war cured him of “isms”—condemns Magda’s socialism. He reminds Magda that it was radical intellectuals who paved the way for communism in the 1930s—and that communism, not capitalism, oppresses Poland.
In saying that the war cured him of “isms,” Peter is saying that the war made him less political. Instead of firing him up to join the political party associated with the side he fought for, Peter rejects all “parties” and ideas of rule, seeming to view any such idea as liable to be oppressive. Political ideals—or “isms”—are thought up by “intellectuals,” and therefore have no basis in lived experience. Knowledge, Peter believes, gives a person the “power” to control and manipulate.
Themes
When Magda gets a letter from Helen (who is traveling in East Berlin) detailing the repression behind the Iron Curtain, it persuades her to support Poland’s cause. Peter tries to protect Magda from her idealism, reminding her what happened to his family when they resisted the Nazis. Ignoring this, Magda volunteers for a Women’s Refuge Referral Service hotline on campus; she envies the student refuge workers, who seem like warriors. Whether from compassion, idealism, or recklessness, Magda starts to work at a refuge. However, she is unable to see herself as similar to Peter, who joined the unit when he was her age.
Peter tries to prevent Magda from falling into his behaviors and thereby continuing a legacy he would rather end. From Magda’s perspective, she thinks that her behavior is a deviation from Peter’s and that she is making her own choices. In this way, Magda’s legacy is operating on her against her wishes and without her knowledge. Until Magda is fully aware of Peter’s character and past, she can’t help but imitate his thought patterns and behaviors.
Themes
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The refuge, Matilda, houses women and children who have escaped abusive husbands. Magda does the dull work of shopping for necessities for the refugees until she is assigned to a summer camp for the kids. The purpose of the refuge is to empower its residents, but often, the victims become emotionally dependent on the workers. Magda, awed by her own ancestors’ survival stories, loves the “presence of death” that haunts the refuge.
Not having delved far into her family’s history, Magda still glorifies the suffering they endured during the war, going so far as to want the opportunity to endure the same hardships. However, she endures suffering at the safe distance of an observer. Between her and her ancestors, there will always be the fundamental division of circumstances.
Themes
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One time, Magda is put in charge of Mai, a woman who escaped from her husband, a brutal Southeast Asian dictatorship intelligence officer. Magda and Sue, another refuge worker, take Mai to her flat when the husband is likely not there. While Magda empties the clothesline, Mai and Sue go inside to get Mai’s things. Suddenly, there is a scream, and Mai and Sue run out of the flat. Unable to get the van door open, the three pile into the front seat and drive away; Mai’s husband was in the house, brandishing a knife. Later, the police inform the refuge that Mai’s husband “gave his word” not to bother Mai again.
This passage describes Magda’s first experience with explicit violence. Although Magda does not have specific experience that resonates with Mai’s experience, her work with the refuge surrounds issues close to Magda’s heart. As a lesbian during the 1970s, when homosexuality isn’t yet decriminalized, Magda faces constant threat of violent harassment. The fact that she is a plus-size woman only makes her better able to understand marginalization and abuse.
Themes
Magda has her first lesbian sexual experience with a worker at Matilda, but meanwhile she is in love with Jane, a girl in her philosophy class. Jane, who works at a psychiatric hospital and lives in her own art deco flat, reawakens Magda’s passion for art. Jane likes Magda’s grassroots politics—Magda has since grown tired of the limitations of ideology. While sleeping on the floor during a trip with the Feminist Club, Magda and Jane kiss. On the drive home, Magda puts her hand on Jane’s knee; the intimate gesture amazes her.
Significantly, Magda puts her hand on Jane’s knee rather than the other way around. This marks the first time that she has initiated a romantic advance toward a woman. At this point, Magda has accepted herself enough to actively initiate a relationship with a woman; the intimacy “amazes” her—it shows her that acting on her true impulses can actually lead to a positive outcome.
Themes
When Magda falls in love with Jane, a “riot” of repressed feelings erupt. Magda’s insecurities lead her to fear that Jane, who is very independent, doesn’t love her. Magda is shocked when Jenny—a girl with whom she thought Jane was having an affair—invites Magda to dinner and confesses that she loves Magda.
Although Magda is now acting on her sexuality, she is still emotionally damaged from the years she spent repressing her feelings. A part of her still feels that she is worthless and will be cheated on and abandoned.
Themes
Distracted by her emotional life, Magda fails her classes. Peter gives up hope that Magda will finish her degree. Magda, who now dresses like a “prototypical dyke,” tells Margaret that many of her peers are lesbians. When Margaret protests, Magda promises that she is not “one” of them; she doesn’t want to sour her relationship with her mother. Because she can’t bear to be alone with herself, Magda can’t sleep or study. When she sits at her desk and opens a book, voices in her head bark like rabid dogs. Magda is afraid that Jane will see the “mad motor” that drives her mind; she drops out of college, asks Margaret for a loan, and buys a plane ticket.
Magda’s sexuality—which she used to keep repressed inside—now appears on the outside: she has a girlfriend, and she dresses like a “prototypical dyke.” However, her divided self is far from healed. She cannot tell her parents who she is, nor can she be alone with herself. While she has emboldened herself to date women, her mental health suffers severely: her mind is a jumble of anxious noises and furiously spinning wheels, and she is unable to focus long enough to study.
Themes
