The Leftovers

“It wasn’t until her mother joined the G.R. that Jill began to understand for herself how absence could warp the mind, make you exaggerate the virtues and minimize the defects of the missing individuals. It wasn’t the same, of course: He mother wasn’t gone gone, not like Jen, but that didn’t seem to matter.”

Jill’s struggle to understand her mother’s decision to join the Guilty Remnant reflects the novel’s theme of Forms of Absence. Unlike the uncontrolled disappearances of the October 14 rapture, Laurie’s disappearance from Jill’s life is a conscious choice. Jill must develop a different set of grieving strategies to cope with her mother’s absence.

“There also weren’t any bad guys to hate, which made everything that much harder to get into focus.”

Tom’s perception of the rapture is informed by media portrayals of the day, which cannot present a single image or cause for the event. Tom grew up in a society where there was an antagonist to blame for each major societal catastrophe. He is drawn to the childhood picture of Verbecki and to Wayne Gilchrest’s image to fill this lack of images to associate with the event.

“They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself.”

Tom and Hubbs experience a great relief after hugging Holy Wayne Gilchrest for the first time. Tom’s description of the event is one of surrender, similar to religious modes of surrender like Catholic confession, meditation, or prayer.

“He just didn’t think it was healthy, being reminded all the time of the terrible and incomprehensible thing that had happened.”

While in the bathroom of the Carpe Diem, Kevin looks at a memorial to the departed bartender. His character is largely defined by his desire to move on from the event, so these memorials hold him back from regaining a sense of normalcy.

“The show was a ritual she’d come to depend on, and these days rituals were pretty much all she had.”

Nora copes with her life in Mapleton after her family disappears by creating a ritual of watching SpongeBob episodes and writing in a journal. Nora’s actions introduce the novel’s theme of Ritualization and Roles, as they become the defining aspect of her daily life. Nora’s devotion to these rituals is religious in nature.

“It just took some people a little longer than others to realize how few words they needed to get by, how much of life they could negotiate in silence.”

Laurie, while receiving an evening’s watch assignment, reflects on the relief she felt in adjusting to the Guilty Remnant’s vow of silence. Their vocal silence symbolically mimics the silence of a God supposedly watching over humans—as the watchers do for Mapleton—but a God that refrains from giving any answers.

“Now that she knew the truth, she could see that she’d lost a little less than she thought she had, which was almost like getting something back. She wasn’t a tragic widow, after all, just another woman betrayed by a selfish man. It was a smaller, more familiar role, and a lot easier to play.”

After Reverend Jamison reveals the affair between Doug Durst and Kylie, Nora is relieved to fulfill the more ordinary role of a betrayed wife in comparison to that of Mapleton’s saddest person. Nora's identity is constructed around the roles she plays as wife, “better-than-average" girlfriend, sister, and mother. Discovering this more ordinary role allows her to cope with the loss of her husband.

“That was what made the holidays so exhausting. Not the callousness of her relatives, their inability to acknowledge her suffering, but precisely the opposite—their inability to forget it for even a second.”

Nora bails on Christmas plans with her family despite resolving to spend Christmas in Mapleton. She cannot deal with their continual pity, especially as she is making an effort to move on. The role Nora plays in her family requires their continual pity; this will contribute to her decision to move out of Mapleton and start over in a new role.

“It was an object to treasure, full of sentimental value, which is why she had no choice but to kneel down and drop it into the first storm drain they saw, poking it through the grate like a coin into a slot.”

Laurie discards Jill’s Christmas present in a symbolic action of fully aligning her identity with the Guilty Remnant. As Laurie becomes more invested in the G.R., she simultaneously loses her interest in life, her attachments to people other than Meg, and her sense of duty to her family.

“The joke seemed a little less funny these days, or maybe just funny in a different way, now that she was trying to be Kevin Garvey’s girlfriend and doing such a crappy job of it. Not because she didn’t like him—that wasn’t the problem at all—but because she couldn’t remember how to play a role that had once been second nature.”

Nora and Doug once joked about Nora’s being a “better-than-average" girlfriend. This was a role she thought she understood for herself, but in dating Kevin, Nora realizes that she can no longer fulfill these expectations. She begins to realize that the old roles she once filled in life no longer apply to life following the rapture.

“Without proper guidance, it was all too easy for them to lapse into familiar patterns they’d left behind. But if they were allowed to do that, they’d miss out on the very thing they’d come for: a chance to start over, to strip away the false comforts of friendship and love, to await the final days without distractions or illusions.”

On the eve of Meg and Laurie’s anticipated separation, the two share a strong connection that goes directly against the Guilty Remnant’s ban on friendship and attachment. Laurie joined the G.R. in the first place to experience a life without “illusions” and attachment, but in becoming close to Meg, she struggles to reconcile her role in the G.R. with her emotions.

“She had joined the G.R. because she had no choice, because it was the only path that made any sense to her. In the process, she’d lost her family and her friends and her place in the community, all the comfort and security money could buy.”

Laurie holds off on presenting Kevin with their divorce papers out of a sense of shame at having to ask for her share of their money. She was content with life in the Guilty Remnant because it stripped her of her old life and gave her a new role to play.

“The one thing life had taught Jill was that things change all the time—abruptly, unpredictably, and often for no good reason.”

On the morning Aimee announces she plans to drop out of school and work full time at Applebee’s, Jill finds that she is no longer surprised when life takes unexpected turns. She is beginning to cope with Laurie’s decision to leave, as well as with her role as an eyewitness to Jen Sussman’s disappearance. Rather than fight against life’s uncertainties, Jill accepts how easily life can change.

“Kevin knew it was an iffy proposition, taking relationship advice from a teenager—a high school dropout, no less—but he’d gotten to know Aimee a lot better in the past couple of weeks and had come to think of her more as a friend and a peer than as one of his daughter’s classmates.”

Kevin asks Aimee for advice on whether to invite Nora to a Valentine’s dinner. Kevin and Aimee’s relationship becomes more intimate after she drops out of school and can spend the mornings with him.

“‘I’m sorry,’ she said, breaking her vow of silence. The sound of her voice was shocking to him, so strange and familiar at the same time, like the voice of a dead person in a dream. ‘I wish there was some other way.’”

Laurie delivers the divorce papers to Kevin and speaks an apology to him. Though Laurie continues to think herself a member of the Guilty Remnant, she makes judgment calls on how far her vow of silence should extend. This foreshadows her refusal to shoot Meg when the G.R. orders her to.

“He’d seen this process before: It didn’t matter what happened in the world—genocidal wars, natural disasters, unspeakable crimes, mass disappearances, whatever—eventually people got tired of brooding about it.”

Two months after Julian's death, when Mapleton is largely back to normal, Kevin reflects on how people collectively move on from tragedy. He believes in the human impulse to return to one’s sense of normalcy following murder, death, and absence.

“What she wanted was a clean break with the past, a wholesale change of appearance, and the quickest, surest way to do that was to become an artificial blonde.”

Nora decides to change her identity and leave Mapleton. The first step is dyeing her hair; by altering her physical appearance, she seeks to hide herself. The use of the word “artificial” also foreshadows that Nora will ultimately abandon her plan after finding Christine’s baby on the Garveys’ porch.

“They hadn’t become lovers—not the way the guys had been, anyway—but they weren’t just friends anymore, either. A powerful sense of intimacy had grown between them in the past few weeks, a bond of complete trust that went beyond anything Laurie had shared with her husband. They were partners now, connected for all eternity.”

Meg and Laurie have an intimacy that goes beyond romance or mentorship. Living secluded at Outpost 17 exacerbates their codependency and cuts them off from any support system or sense of reality, contributing to Meg’s willingness to martyr herself for the Guilty Remnant’s cause.

“You could have told me what I already think I know—that all parents get stressed out and angry and wish for a little peace and quiet. It’s not the same as wishing for the people you love to be gone forever. But what if it is, Kevin? Then what?”

In Nora’s goodbye letter to Kevin, she writes of the moment her family disappeared. Their ordinary dinner and her exasperation with her family contribute to Nora’s guilt at having possibly instigated their disappearance in some way. This guilt keeps Nora from being able to accept her family’s absence and move on.

“Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn’t your fault.”

Aimee moves out of the Garveys’ house. In their goodbye, the two former friends acknowledge how essential their close friendship was at that time in their lives. They are both in different places now and can move on from each other amicably.

“Don’t hesitate. That was guideline number one. The martyr’s exit should be swift and painless.”

The role of the martyr is placed upon Meg by the Guilty Remnant. Laurie receives instructions to shoot Meg quickly and accurately, but she finds she is unable to do so. Meg steps into the role of the false martyr by shooting herself.

“It was one thing to have a fantasy of disappearing, of leaving your friends and family behind, and another thing to go ahead and make it real.”

As Nora walks to the Garveys’ house to hand-deliver her goodbye letter to Kevin, she reflects on the novel’s theme of Forms of Absence and the necessary steps a conscious abandonment requires. Nora’s actions foil Laurie’s, who likewise desired a complete disappearance from her old life when she joined the Guilty Remnant.

“Beyond that, she knew nothing about her destination and didn’t really care. Wherever it was, she would go there, and she would wait for the end, her own and everyone else’s. She didn’t think it would be long now.”

Laurie gets into her getaway car after Meg shoots herself. She feels little emotion, investment, or concern for what occurs next in her life. Laurie fully surrenders her agency to the Guilty Remnant’s belief that an end is near. Believing in an end absolves her of feeling guilt or regret for Meg’s death.