43 pages • 1 hour read
Louise PennyStill Life
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A 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
Growth Versus Stagnation
In Still Life, Penny examines the human capacity to grow and adapt. Ben expresses his view that “people don’t change” (51). Myrna adopts a more nuanced view, with a recognition that many, perhaps most, people show little interest in changing their ways, though they may profess otherwise, but an important minority do work toward positive change. “The solution,” she asserts, “rests with us” (140). Her comments accord with Gamache’s counsel to Nichol about the primacy of choice in determining outcomes. A single choice may not have much impact, but over time, “a gradual change, an evolution” takes place (184), as Mr. Croft reflects, comparing such a change to the process of pickling cucumbers.
Barriers to change include the mistaken beliefs that change is not possible or else not needed. While Ben espouses the earlier viewpoint, Nichol subscribes to the latter, blaming others for problems of her own creation. This is not to imply that the characters can be neatly divided into those who change and those who do not. Instead, characters pass through periods of openness and resistance to change. Ruth spends much of her life repressing her feelings about her role in breaking up Jane’s engagement, and Jane spends most of her life hiding her art from others who might enjoy and appreciate it. Both women eventually change their outlook, after decades of resistance.
One of Penny’s most pointed examinations of the capacity to change concerns Yolande. When Yolande was a child, Jane played a game of sorts with her. Each night, she left a Queen of Hearts playing card on the table, telling Yolande to memorize its appearance, promising that the card would look different in the morning, and Yolande believed her, even though Jane never modified or switched the card. When Clara ties a Queen of Hearts to the prayer stick on Yolande’s behalf, she reflects that “the magic wasn’t in it staying the same, but the changes” (212). The implication is that the viewer changes, not the card. As a child, when Yolande believed the card was changing, it was because she was growing and changing. As an adult, when she receives a Queen of Hearts as her solitary inheritance following Jane’s death, she scrutinizes the card much as she did as a child and decides that it is not the same card she saw decades earlier. Instead of believing that it changed magically, she considers it to be a cheap replacement and throws it away. What was likely intended by Jane as a reminder that change is possible instead becomes a mere reminder of her resentments.
If Yolande and Ben demonstrate the dangers of resistance to change, Still Life ends on a positive note, with Clara finding artistic rejuvenation and Gamache recognizing that life in Three Pines is far from “still.”
Authenticity and Acceptance
Still Life features at least two characters who struggle to overcome feelings of shame, which typically arise from a conflict between individual desire and the pressures applied by a community. For Jane, that community is her family, described as “social climbers.” Her parents not only move to prevent Jane from marrying the lumberjack she loves but also try to stamp out her artistic tendencies and forbid her from attending art school. Fortunately, Jane perseveres in her artistic endeavors, but her parents’ intervention costs her the opportunity to receive formal training and leaves her with a lifelong sense that her art is something to be ashamed of. Though no catalyst for Jane’s change of heart can be readily identified, Clara seems to have encouraged her, demonstrating the value of supportive friends in deconstructing shame. Seeing Jane’s work for the first time, Ruth laments that Jane “didn’t know we loved her enough to be trusted with this” (261). Though Jane doesn’t live to see what kind of reception her work receives, she does make a few final strides toward overcoming shame. The timing is significant: she sheds tears of joy not when she finds out that her piece was accepted for display but when she finalizes her choice to submit her work. This shows that the deconstruction of shame begins not with the receipt of approval from others but with the decision to act authentically, regardless of consequences.
Philippe Croft also struggles with shame. As a teenage boy, Philippe suffers abuse at the hands of Bernard, who threatens to out him as gay. Philippe represses his feelings and conceals his struggle from his parents, who do not know that he is gay. He even joins Bernard in throwing manure at Olivier and Gabri simply because they are openly gay. His frustration spills over into other areas of his life, lowering his grades and straining his relationship with his bewildered parents. Unlike Jane, Philippe does not make a definitive choice to express his authentic self before the novel’s conclusion, but he does come close to opening up to his father. Additionally, Gabri and Olivier reveal to Gamache that they assigned Philippe to work at the bistro not so much to punish him for throwing manure as to give him a chance to “watch them. And see it was all right” (310).
While Jane and Philippe inch their way toward authenticity, aided by individuals who offer them acceptance, others demonstrate the opposite: the potential for an individual’s authentic self to be swallowed up in the quest for approval at any cost. Yolande becomes an extreme example of this phenomenon, as Penny’s narration makes clear: “Yolande Fontaine only really existed with an audience. She was like those novelty lamps that came on when you clapped your hands” (224). Those who value acceptance over authenticity risk losing whatever was authentic and unique about them in the first place.
Balancing Individual and Collective Responsibilities
Penny explores the tension between individual and collective well-being in several contexts. Gamache’s team provides an example of effective collaboration, as they meet frequently to share their findings, think of each other as colleagues, and work together to solve the case. Two rifts come into this otherwise ideal scenario. The first involves Nichol, who sees herself as competing with others, rather than working with them. Under another officer, her tactics might have worked. Gamache, however, is of the opinion that “the wrong people were being rewarded within the Sûreté,” so he goes out of his way to reward “the team players” (65). Even as Gamache chastises Nichol for her poor integration within his team, Gamache himself struggles to comply with the demands of the Sûreté in general. There are hints that his career has stalled because he is unwilling to toe the line, and he is suspended when he refuses to arrest Mr. Croft. Using the organization of the Sûreté as a case study, then, Penny demonstrates that both noncompliant individuals and the larger organizations to which they belong can, at times, be at fault. While a functional team dynamic should be the end goal of any organization, getting there is not worth the sacrifice of individual members’ integrity.
Ben raises a similar question in a different context while visiting with Gamache in the village green. After complaining of discrimination against anglophones by Quebec’s French speakers, he vows to place his faith “in individuals, not the collective” (50). Gamache goes on to reflect that “the English believed in individual rights and the French felt they had to protect collective rights” (50). Although Penny does not return to the theme of English–French relations explicitly, Ben’s murderous actions can be seen as a violation of not just the individuals he kills but also the communities subsequently deprived of those individuals. It is perhaps for this reason that Clara decides that the next ritual should be limited to women, “not necessarily just Jane’s close friends, but any woman who’d like to take part” (103), as Clara puts it (103). The implication is that collective rights exist beyond the mere confines of a physical location or community and extend to those who share nothing more than a common humanity, sisterhood, or brotherhood.
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