50 pages • 1-hour read
After You
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Themes
The Complicated Process of Grieving and Healing
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental health conditions, death, death by medically assisted suicide, and sexual content.
After You picks up where its prequel Me Before You ends, thus tracing how Louisa Clark processes and heals from Will Traynor’s death. Because Louisa is the novel’s main character and first-person narrator, Moyes contextualizes its explorations of grief and healing within Louisa’s distinct experience. While 18 months have passed since Will’s passing, Louisa still feels unmoored by her sorrow at the novel’s start. She feels that Will “smashed up” her old life “into little pieces” and left her alone to figure out what “to do with what’s left” (7). Without Will, Louisa has lost not only the man she loved but also her sense of meaning, purpose, grounding, and identity. Death, the novel therefore underscores, can disrupt the individual’s entire sense of reality and self.
For Louisa, life without Will has effectively trapped her in an interstice between the past and the present. She no longer dresses the way she did (now clad in drab jeans and t-shirts instead of her usual flamboyant outfits); she is working a dead-end job (now tending bar instead of pursuing her caretaking passion); she is disconnected from her family (now living on her own in a London flat and barely communicating with her parents and sister in her hometown). Her life in the narrative present resembles a metaphoric purgatory or realm between life and death. Her grief has thus isolated her from others and from life itself. Furthermore, Louisa can’t move beyond her sorrow over Will until she acknowledges her grief and owns her need for help and support.
The author uses the evolution of Louisa’s living space to trace her gradual journey toward healing and renewal. The apartment is geographically located “on the edge of the City” (48), which is symbolic of Louisa’s emotional isolation from others. At the start of the novel, the interior of her flat is also almost entirely barren. She doesn’t have photographs, decorations, or any real furniture. The blank walls and living space represent the blankness of Louisa’s life in the wake of Will’s death. She doesn’t invest in her space because she feels incapable of investing in her life amidst her grief. Throughout the novel, however, Louisa’s relationship with the flat changes. She paints the walls with Lily Miller. She acquires new furniture after she starts seeing Sam Fielding. At the end of the novel, she even hosts an event on her rooftop with her family and friends. These subtle changes capture Louisa’s work to reengage with her life and thus show how healing from loss is a gradual process that requires time, work, and support.
Louisa’s relationships with Lily, Sam, her family, and the members of the Moving On Circle also usher her toward healing. With Lily, Louisa rediscovers herself as a caretaker, friend, and confidante. With Sam, Louisa rediscovers herself as a lover and partner. With her family, she remembers that she is loved. With her grief group, she learns how to ask for support and make new connections. Via these interpersonal facets of Louisa’s story, the novel highlights that community and intimacy are also essential parts of confronting, processing, and transcending grief.
The Complexity of Human Relationships After Loss
Another of the novel’s primary themes is the complexity of forming and maintaining human relationships in the wake of loss. Since losing Will 18 months before the narrative present, Louisa has self-isolated as a way to cope with her sorrow, confusion, shame, and guilt. She misses Will and doesn’t know how to express her grief to others. At the same time, she fears that because Will didn’t love her enough to stay alive, she is unlovable. She also fears that because she couldn’t stop Will from dying by assisted suicide, she is guilty of killing him and that others will judge and ridicule her for the rest of her life. Furthermore, she is convinced that because she was Will’s caretaker and he chose to die, she is incapable of making and sustaining healthy relationships. Therefore, in After You, Louisa intentionally avoids human connection because she doesn’t know how to be close to others in light of her recent loss.
Louisa’s relationships with Lily, Sam, her parents, Treena, and the Moving On Circle teach her that while human connection is risky, it is also life-giving. When Lily first comes into Louisa’s life, Louisa isn’t sure who she’s supposed to be to her. She attempts to fulfill a pseudo-parental role in Lily’s life but discovers that even she (known for her empathy and magnetism) isn’t capable of alleviating Lily’s distress. Over time, however, she learns that the complexity of her and Lily’s dynamic isn’t a sign of her failure: rather, it’s evidence that they’re both human and in need of love.
With Sam, Louisa rediscovers her self-worth. When they first start seeing each other, Louisa feels excited for the distraction their sexual intimacy offers her. Over time, she realizes that she genuinely likes and cares for Sam. At the same time, she “still feel[s] a bit mixed up,” and doubts that she can just “leap in” to a new relationship after Will; she’s “only just getting back on [her] feet” and convinces herself that being with Sam is an impediment to properly grieving Will and honoring his memory (307). Ultimately, Louisa overcomes these fears and insecurities when she almost loses Sam: an event which teaches her the importance of embracing love and intimacy when life offers it. The relationship remains risky at the novel’s end (the two decide to continue dating long-distance when Louisa moves overseas), but it also offers Louisa happiness, connection, and true care.
Louisa’s concurrent relationships with her family members and new friends also usher her toward growth. Her connections with her parents and sister are particularly transformative because she has a long relational history with her family, and they know her well. They’re therefore able to offer Louisa counsel, advice, and direction without inhibition; their critiques of her life aren’t critiques of her character but signs that they’re worried about her healing and her future. The friendships she makes through the Moving On Circle are similarly challenging. The grief group leader and members are intimate with Louisa’s emotional experience and often challenge her perceptions of reality and herself. All these relationships thus compel Louisa to examine her life in new ways and to embrace intimacy despite the sorrow she has experienced. Ultimately, with the help of friends and loved ones, Louisa learns how to love herself again.
The Impact of Unexpected Life Changes
A third theme Moyes explores throughout After You is the transformative impact of unexpected life changes. For Louisa, these changes manifest in a network of ways. Most notably, Lily’s sudden appearance in Louisa’s life disrupts her sense of reality and self and ushers her toward a new point of view. Lily first appears in Louisa’s story in Chapter 1, when her voice emerges out of the darkness, warning Louisa about walking on the parapet. Her presence there catalyzes Louisa’s fall—which is the inciting incident of the novel. Indeed, Sam later tells Louisa, “You never know what will happen when you fall from a great height” (64). The allusion to the fall and the great height are metaphors for life’s unexpected events. Falling off the roof indeed sets off a series of unanticipated events for Louisa: she reunites with her family, lets Lily into her life, reconnects and makes amends with the Traynors, starts a new relationship with Sam (the paramedic who brought her to the ambulance), and pursues new job opportunities.
The changes that Louisa experiences throughout the novel remind her that she is ultimately not in control. In the immediate wake of Will’s death, Louisa retreats from life because she is afraid of taking risks. She convinces herself that if she keeps her life small, she can avoid more encounters with loss, heartbreak, sorrow, and pain. This is why, for example, she hesitates to commit to Sam (a relationship she didn’t expect so soon after Will’s death). She is afraid that opening her heart to Sam will expose her to more discomfort she won’t be able to handle. The way she addresses the relationship with Sam provides insight into her general fear of the unknown: “You might go off me,” she tells Sam, “You might change your mind. You’re a good-looking bloke. Some other woman might fall off a building and land on you and you might like it. You could get ill. You could get knocked off that motorbike” (307). Louisa has a similar regard for her living and working situations. She doesn’t want to leave her flat or quit her job because doing so means the possibility of newness, uncertainty, and thus failure.
Throughout the novel, Louisa learns to embrace the unexpected aspects of life and to regard the unknown as a realm of possibility rather than fear. In particular, her decision to accept the New York job opportunity conveys her newfound ability to venture beyond her comfort zone. Her surprising experiences with Lily, Sam, her family, and the Moving On Circle have taught her that living through fear doesn’t amount to living at all. Once she takes a risk, she wakes back up to all of life’s beautiful offerings—both planned and unplanned.
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