Previous
Visitation: Chapter 2
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
When Leah her mother, Pauline, about Shar, Pauline accuses Leah of getting “soft.” Their family struggled, after all, but they never stooped to “robbing” to make ends meet. Michel (whose name Pauline pronounces incorrectly as “Michael”) also thinks Leah has been conned. Pauline often tells the story of how she came from Ireland and met Leah’s father (Colin Hanwell), an English widower. Leah senses that Pauline keeps repeating the story because she feels she’s running out of time and wants to condense the past into a manageable size.
Pauline Hanwell represents a more conservative viewpoint than Leah—Pauline believes that a person’s circumstances reflect their character, and so Shar must be dishonest or scheming to end up in her present circumstances. She similarly shows an inability to adapt with the times by refusing to learn how to pronounce Michel’s name—even though she is herself an immigrant to England (from Ireland).
Themes
Pauline and Michel only ever get along when they both believe Leah has done something stupid. While the two of them talk, Leah goes into the garden and finds her upstairs neighbor Ned smoking weed in her hammock, as he often does. Ned is obsessed with watching sunsets and noting the time of day. He offers a smoke to Leah. Shar never did return as promised.
Pauline and Michel’s moment of agreement here hints at how, as much as Michel represents a new, increasingly international version of Northwest London, he also has some of the same conservative impulses as Pauline. By contrast, Leah’s conversation with her pot-smoking upstairs neighbor suggests that she is more accepting and still has a touch of hippie idealism.
Themes
