40 pages • 1 hour read
Anne EnrightThe Gathering
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide summarizes and analyzes the source text’s graphic depiction of the sexual abuse of children, grief, addiction, and death by suicide.
Chapter 2 Summary
Veronica Hegarty grew up in a large family with 11 siblings: Midge, Bea, Ernest, Stevie, Ita, Mossie, Liam, Kitty, Alice, and the twins Ivor and Jem. Veronica believes that having so many children made her mother unable to give each child the attention and care they needed. Veronica visits her mother to deliver the terrible news that Liam is dead.
Chapter 3 Summary
Veronica wants to tell the story of Liam’s tragic ending, which requires her to return to the past. She starts by fictionalizing the story of how her grandmother, Ada Merriman, met and fell in love with a man named Lambert “Lamb” Nugent in 1925. Ada didn’t marry Nugent; she married his friend Charlie Spillane instead. Veronica imagines Nugent seeing Ada for the first time in a hotel lobby and falling instantly in love.
Chapter 4 Summary
Chapter 5 Summary
Chapter 6 Summary
Chapter 7 Summary
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
The first chapters of The Gathering introduce the theme of The Influence of Family History as the narrator, Veronica, revisits her family’s past to make sense of her beloved brother’s death by suicide. Enright symbolizes history as existing in the body: “I think you might call it a crime of the flesh, but the flesh is long fallen away and I am not sure what hurt may linger in the bones” (1). Enright emphasizes the idea that history, trauma, and love can be found in the metaphor of the skeleton. This suggests that it’s impossible to escape history, trauma, and love, as no one can escape their own skeleton except in death.
These chapters also introduce the theme of The Impact of Death and Grief. There are several types of grief at play in the narrative. Veronica not only grieves for Liam but also for parts of her life that never existed, such as more attention from her mother or more time with her father. Veronica understands the universality of her experience, describing her grief as “biological, idiot, timeless” and thus connecting herself to all the people in the world who have lost loved ones (11). The mood of grief propels Veronica’s character to reconsider her life and her relationships with her family.
Complex family dynamics are a predominant topic of exploration in The Gathering. Veronica is loyal to her family but also burdened by that loyalty. Her love for her family is clear in the way she takes care of Liam’s funeral arrangements and her grieving mother. But she also resents her family. She is angry with Liam for how his life turned out, angry at her siblings who live too far away to be involved, and angry with her mother for having so many children that no individual child could get the attention they needed. Veronica also has complicated feelings about her husband, from whom she feels a growing distance. Although she doesn’t want a divorce, she avoids him as much as she can, especially after Liam’s death. This speaks to Veronica’s characterization: She is surrounded by family but feels she has no one to whom she can turn to for help in her grief. Therefore, she turns inward. Her conflict with her family both develops her character and propels the plot.
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By Anne Enright
