53 pages • 1 hour read
Rebecca YarrosThe Things We Leave Unfinished
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Romance in Fiction and in Life
With two protagonists who are romance writers, the novel plays with perceptions about the romance genre while still faithfully adhering to its tropes, conventions, and structure, thus looking at the theme of romance from several angles.
One of the first assumptions the novel plays with is the suggestion that romantic love depicted in fiction is incongruent with real life. Noah accuses romances of being unrealistic, and Georgia initially agrees that happy endings belong to the fantasy of romance novels while real life tends to offer less in the way of satisfactory resolutions. In this, she has Scarlett’s loss of Jameson, then Brian; Ava’s several husbands; and Georgia’s own divorce with Damian as evidence. Noah’s tragic love stories are shelved in the general fiction section because of this presumed verisimilitude to life. His reputation is the reason Georgia says she picked him to finish Scarlett’s story. While Noah acknowledges the importance that the happy ending will play for readers of the genre, Georgia insists that Scarlett’s story take its model from life and have the more poignant ending. The happy ending of romance stories, the definitive aspect of the genre, is thus portrayed as an imaginative element belonging to the world of fiction.
In real life, the characters agree that the kinds of romances written about in books are rare. Scarlett and Jameson are said to have such a passion. They are immediately drawn to one another, and the risk of the war-torn world around them presses them to follow their feelings. Their mutual attraction is strong, and the sex is intensely pleasurable. The obstacles in their way only make them more determined to be together.
In the contemporary love story, Noah is the one familiar with the romance script. He acknowledges his attraction to Georgia and makes the choice to return to Colorado to win her over. While he initially hopes to persuade her to agree with him on the matter of the novel’s ending, his larger goal becomes to win Georgia’s love. Their love story reflects the plot formula that Scarlett spoke about to Constance, in which characters’ flaws are used against them to propel them into changing and earning love. Georgia’s trust issues are tested by climbing with Noah and then when she learns he deceived her about having the book finished. However, when she learns that her beloved Gran was really Constance, and not Scarlett Stanton, Georgia learns a lesson about sacrifice. Constance’s choice to take care of William, out of love for her nephew and her deceased sister, shows Georgia that love is forgiving, generous, and unselfish. She applies this lesson to her romantic relationship with Noah and commits to the ending he wishes—the happy ending both for the book and for their own love affair.
In contrast, other presumably “real-life” love affairs contrast the kind of epic, storybook love that Scarlett and Jameson are said to have. Georgia looks at a picture of Scarlett and Jameson, “both in uniform, so lost in each other that my chest ached for what they’d had…and lost. I’d never loved Damian like that. I wasn’t even sure Gran had loved Grandpa Brian like that, either. That was the real stuff, right there” (69). In contrast, Georgia’s marriage with Damian was riddled with infidelity, and he seems no more devoted to his new companion. Constance fell in love with Brian but lost him to cancer. Ava has had several husbands. Hazel, Georgia’s best friend, has a marriage based less on grand passion than trust, emotional support, and affection. The novel thus keeps to its premise that in real life, grand passion is rare and wonderful, and Noah and Georgia should cherish what they have.
Family Loyalties
Another kind of love that pervades the novel is the loyalty one feels to one’s family members, living or dead. The theme of family loyalty provides several points of conflict in the book, as well as paving the way to important resolutions.
Georgia’s family loyalties are the most important for the book, as they have the most impact on the present moment. She oversees her great-grandmother’s literary estate, which means she owns the rights to Scarlett’s books and has the legal power to enter contracts concerning these works. Georgia’s intense loyalty to Gran, who raised her, makes her suspicious of Noah and wary about signing a contract with him to finish Scarlett’s last book. Georgia also feels the need, leftover from childhood, to have her mother’s approval, and this motivates her as well. Georgia gives the advance, the money the publisher pays for writing the book, to her mother as a gesture of goodwill, hoping to repair their relationship.
Ava feels no such loyalty in return. She wants more money and tries by underhanded means to get Georgia to sell the movie rights to Damian, showing no concern for Georgia’s wishes.
Noah’s loyalty to his family is an essential aspect of his character, one of his strengths. He supported his mother as she recovered from a car accident, and he is good friends with his sister. His insistence on keeping promises will test him as Georgia’s choice of the unhappy ending for the novel puts his career in jeopardy, leading to poor reviews. Noah proves that his loyalty is to Georgia, whom he loves, and this is the type of grand gesture that satisfies the romance arc and demonstrates he is a worthy partner for the heroine.
Family loyalties create similar conflict and resolutions among the Wright and Stanton families. Scarlett’s insistence against marrying Henry Wadsworth alienates her from her parents, leading her to find emotional support from Jameson. Constance’s sense of family loyalty, and nostalgia for the family home, leads her to marry Henry in Scarlett’s stead. In the end, it is Constance’s loyalty toward his sister that leads her to fulfill Scarlett’s wishes and take William to Colorado. Constance’s loyalty toward her family leads her to step in to parent Ava, as well as she can, when William and his wife, Ava’s mother, are killed in a car crash when Ava is 16. Constance, as Gran, takes in Georgia when Ava, a young mother, cannot parent her adequately. Constance tells Georgia in her last letter that she came from love, meaning Georgia is descended from William. But in a larger sense, it is Gran’s love and loyalty that have shaped and supported Georgia, provided her refuge, and helped her realize who she is.
Discovering or Reclaiming One's Passion
Each of the main characters, in their own way, demonstrates the importance, and the rewards, of having and following a unique personal passion, whether it is a hobby, career, or creative outlet. The rewards of such pursuits extend beyond personal satisfaction to nurture families and communities, inspire others, and in some cases, save lives.
Georgia is the most dramatic example of a character reclaiming her passion. Her interest in glass blowing belongs to her life before Damian. She met Damian while she was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, and when she married him—bringing movie rights to 10 Scarlett Stanton books with her—she put aside her glass work to help Damian found a production company. She also devoted her time and energy to running her great-grandmother’s literary estate, which has been put in a charitable trust that Georgia administers. Back in Poplar Grove, having given up the production company at her marriage, Georgia continues her work with the trust, but she also feels the longing to return to her creative work. Leasing the studio marks the evolution of Georgia’s character toward being ready to accept passion into her life. Opening a glass sculpture studio of her own, like falling in love with Noah, offers a fulfillment of her desires.
Noah and Jameson are similar in that they have made their passion into a career. Jameson is a pilot who puts his skills at the service of the Royal Air Force when the US is still reluctant to enter the war. Noah loves to write and became interested in love stories when he read Scarlett Stanton novels to his mother while she recovered from a car accident. Having the opportunity to work on Scarlett Stanton’s unfinished manuscript rekindles Noah’s passion for writing. It also provides him a way to pursue and claim a romantic relationship with Georgia.
Scarlett’s hobby becomes more engrossing to her over the course of her story. When she is a young mother without close friends or neighbors in their rented house, she uses her free time to write stories on the typewriter that Jameson gives her. This becomes a defining part of her personality, to the point that, when Constance is in Colorado as Scarlett Stanton, Jameson’s family encourages her to write again. Constance, borrowing what she learned from Scarlett, turns this into a passion and a career. Constance also loves flowers and planting things, as evidenced by the extensive English garden at her house, which likewise serves as a symbol of her nurturing abilities and her resilience. In this way, each of the main characters contribute to the novel’s theme that a full, rich, fulfilling, and rewarding life involves following one’s passions in terms of hobbies or other creative endeavors, not alone in relationships with other people.
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