66 pages 2 hours read

Hanya Yanagihara

A Little Life

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015

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Symbols & Motifs

Blurring of Past and Present

Yanagihara parcels out the horrific picture of Jude’s past in small doses throughout the novel rather than narrating it all at once. This technique serves multiple purposes. First, it draws in the reader: Through hints given early on, we know bits and fragments of Jude’s past, but each new fragment we get only leaves us more interested in the full picture. Second, the average reader would likely find the experience of reading Jude’s full history in one narrative chunk too difficult; the details are so harrowing that even reading them in small fragments proves challenging.

Third, and most importantly, the segmented telling of Jude’s past mirrors Jude’s own thought patterns. The demons from his past are always lurking just under the surface. On any given day, some sense memory from the hotels he shared with Brother Luke, Dr. Traylor’s basement, or the children’s home might invade a happy scene at work or home. Moreover, the logic he formed as a child continues to inform his entire adult life; he never abandons his underlying certainty that he inspires disgust and that he cannot trust anyone to love him unconditionally. Because he is unable to shed this logic, Jude maintains a childlike presence throughout the novel. He may have a high-powered job in an influential New York City law firm, but the author does not actually show him in action at this job, leaving that side of him feeling like a make-believe self he inhabits for long portions of each workday. Not a day goes by that his childhood does not influence his behavior and thoughts, and Yanagihara’s slow dispensing of the narrative of that childhood reflects this continuous presence.

Expectations of Masculinity

The greatest influence that gender has on the expression of emotion in the novel is Jude’s shame over his sexual abuse at the hands of adult men in his childhood. A woman with the same past would doubtless struggle to overcome similar feelings of shame because self-blame is common in abuse victims. However, the common societal narrative about sexual assault is that its victims are usually women. The average person knows that men experience sexual assault but recognizes that occurrence as much less frequent. Jude never openly states that he considers his past more shameful because he is a man, but the author reveals how extraordinarily sensitive he is about being perceived as weak. He hates the moments when his legs betray him with pain episodes not only because he hurts but because they usually involve people witnessing his disability. He recoils at the thought of his friends having to care for him increasingly as he ages. Knowing this sensitivity of Jude’s, the reader can reasonably infer that Jude carries extra shame about his childhood because of feelings that as a man he should have been able to prevent his own victimization.

At the same time, while Jude’s circle of male friends may be unusually sensitive and in touch with their own feelings, even they often struggle with Jude’s reticence about his past, wary of transgressing his strict boundaries. While female friendships are often characterized by open, honest, emotionally laden conversation, men are not as encouraged to practice this kind of communication. When Jude repeatedly opts for silence or misdirection in response to questions about his past, his friends have next to no tools to handle his behavior. They surrender to his silence quickly, not wanting to upset the precarious balancing act of friendship with him.

Jude’s Prosthetic Legs

Jude’s legs, both his actual legs and the prosthetic legs he eventually gets, do not serve a merely symbolic function; in some ways, they are relentlessly real and material. The surgery in which his legs are amputated, leaving him in need of the prostheses, involves a difficult recovery characterized by pain and weakness. Even after the pain subsides, Jude has to exert great effort to habituate himself to the new legs.

In addition to this difficult materiality, though, the legs do serve an important symbolic function. They only help Jude insofar as he lets them. When he gets fitted for them, he is warned that too dire a weight change in either direction—weight gain or weight loss—will result in the legs no longer fitting him. Without his active participation in maintaining his current weight, the prosthetic legs are useless. As he slides into a deep depression, he deserts this responsibility, shedding weight at an alarming pace, purposefully starving himself and depriving himself of rest to induce hallucinations of the deceased Willem.

Similarly, all of Jude’s friends’ attempts at helping him heal cannot work without his participation. Harold and Willem give him opportunity after opportunity to unburden himself of the weight of his past, to share it with them rather than keeping it locked inside. When this tactic does not work, they and Andy encourage him to attend therapy, thinking perhaps he will feel better telling his story to a stranger. Similarly, Jude’s loved ones try an endless variety of tactics to prevent his cutting, from recording new cuts to distracting him with other activities to throwing away his razors to physically overpowering him. However, all of these methods are useless if Jude himself is not willing to make an effort. While he wants to please them, he can never let down the armor he developed as a child: the belief that his true self inspires disgust and must be hidden at all costs.