51 pages • 1-hour read
The Lacuna
A 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
The Complex Relationship Between Art and Politics
The Lacuna spans two periods of history that capture different elements of The Complex Relationship Between Art and Politics. In Part 3, protagonist Harrison Shepherd finds himself in the middle of a milieu of Communist artists engaged in the conflict between Stalinist Communism and an “alternative” represented by Trotsky. In Parts 4-7 of the novel, Shepherd, now a writer, finds himself caught up in the heightened moral panic of the Red Scare. Although Shepherd does not have any explicit political dogmas, he finds himself implicated in this complex web of ties nevertheless.
In the 1930s in the Stalinist USSR, artists were charged with creating art that would support the regime and could be punished if their work was seen as bourgeois. By contrast, Soviet exile Leon Trotsky advocated for the artist’s right to express themselves freely. Although Shepherd does not directly engage in these debates, he is influenced by them through his time spent with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, supporters of Trotsky at the time. He is impressed by Diego Rivera’s murals, which he assists in creating and depicting the history of Mexico, including the ancient civilizations like the Maya and the Aztecs, as well as the workers. This motif is reprised in Shepherd’s first novel, Vassals of Majesty, about the conflict between the Aztecs and the Spanish conquistadors under Hernan Cortéz. Frida Kahlo encourages him in this pursuit, echoing Trotsky, Rivera, and André Breton’s Manifesto when she says, “If you want to write romantic novels about the Azteca […] I mean, if that’s what moves you, then you should do it” (260-61). Later, when Shepherd laments to Trotsky that writing novels is not “revolutionary,” Trotsky counters this; he argues that people find freedom in great novels like those written by Dostoyevsky.
After finding the manuscript and notebooks Kahlo had saved for him, Shepherd begins to write his novels. These are romantic, epic potboilers that are seemingly apolitical. However, his typist and secretary, Mrs. Brown, identifies that they have a political valance. She notes that by setting his novels in ancient or early modern Mexico, he has been able to “disguise” his political thoughts and “to say what [he] believe[s] and still keep out of trouble” (528). For instance, Shepherd’s second novel, The Pilgrims of Chapultepec, contains an implicit criticism of political leadership and atomic war. This criticism is seemingly only identified at the time of its publication by one critic, Sam Hall Mitchell, in The Evening Post, who writes:
Just as we’ve lately been warned by Bernard Baruch’s somber report to Congress, these pilgrims must choose between the quick and the dead, when fate gives them a dread power without means to stop its baleful use. Baruch argues for disposal of all atom bombs, while author Shepherd only calls the reader to wonder until the final page: has the sacred weapon saved those who wield it, or doomed them? (458).
After his Communist ties are publicized, the political aspects of Shepherd’s novels are seized upon and distorted by the press to vilify him. The same critic quoted above describes Shepherd’s third novel, The Unforetold, as “insidious” because it is critical of political leadership. This portion of the novel shows how even artists like Shepherd, who sought to “disguise” their political leanings in their work, found themselves scrutinized, imprisoned, blackmailed, and blacklisted during the Red Scare in the United States.
The Role of the Media in Shaping Public Perception and Creating Panic
The novel is cynical about the media and how it performs its role of sharing information with the public. Throughout, Barbara Kingsolver shows the media as censuring information, outright lying, distorting the truth, or otherwise shaping narratives to create controversy. This kind of disinformation or misinformation is commonly associated in the American public imagination with the dictatorship under Stalin in the Soviet Union, where the press was a mouthpiece for Stalin and the Communist Party. However, in The Lacuna, Kingsolver focuses on these similar dynamics in the American and Mexican press of the 1930s and 1940s. Shepherd learns from Leon Trotsky how the American and Mexican press distorts information to shape public perception of those deemed dangerous to the ruling paradigm. Shepherd then becomes a victim of this same dynamic when he is investigated for Communist ties by Hoover’s FBI and HUAC.
The tendency of the press to lie or misinform about those who are protesting the government is first raised in Part 2; Shepherd is shocked to learn that the newspapers describe the Bonus Army as “criminals” and celebrate their attack by American military forces. Bull’s Eye explains to Shepherd that “they were created like criminals […] so people want to think it. The paper says whatever they want” (143). Trotsky echoes this analysis in Part 3. Shepherd is shocked by the “improbable” accusations the newspapers have of Trotsky. The man himself, however, takes it in stride, explaining to Shepherd that newspapers “tell the truth only as the exception” (207). They privilege a sensational story over a true one. When Trotsky survives an assassination attempt on his life by Stalinists, the newspapers “say it was a pantomime, mounted by Trotsky himself to gain publicity” even though the police have arrested over thirty people for their involvement in the plot” (313). They are committed to demonizing Trotsky because they see Communism as a subversive plot to undermine Western capitalism—and because it is a more thrilling narrative than the truth.
Shepherd finds himself in the crosshairs of a similar negative media campaign premised on falsehoods to drive panic about him and his work. After it becomes public knowledge that he was fired for his “Communist ties,” the newspapers pick a quote spoken by a character in his book seen as being critical of the government and then report on it as if it was spoken by Shepherd himself. From there, the claims become increasingly absurd, resulting in the publication of an article in The Echo that claims Shepherd was a spy and a womanizer who “supplied secrets to the Communist Chinese revolt against Chiang Kai-shek” (624). The Red-baiting articles create a moral panic around Shepherd’s work, and his books are subsequently being banned. The falsehoods extend even to his obituary in The Asheville Trumpet, which reports that he published two novels when, in fact, he published three. This illustrates how Shepherd is ultimately helpless to counter any of the falsehoods published about him and the power of the press to shape public perception and create a moral panic.
The Struggle of Dual Nationality and the Search for Belonging
Protagonist Harrison Shepherd is a dual American Mexican citizen. He was born in the United States to Mexican parents. Throughout the novel, Shepherd constantly moves between the United States and Mexico. He never feels entirely at home in either country. In Mexico, he is scrutinized for his Americanness. In the United States, he is seen as a foreigner. Wherever he is, he tries to find a place he can call home, with mixed results.
At the beginning of the novel, Shepherd is a young teenager living in Mexico. The local boys do not want to associate with him, because he’s different. They scream, “‘Vete rubio,’ go away blond boy” at him (44), even though he is not blond but has “Mexican black” hair. The term is shorthand for “American.” Later, when Shepherd goes to the Potomac Academy, he receives a similar treatment from the boys there, but because of his Mexican background. They call him “Mexico” or “Brush Ape.” He does not fit in with them and often finds he does not understand the social rules to which they all adhere. This feeling of not understanding the rules of the social order because he was brought up between worlds persists into Shepherd’s adulthood. He writes Frida, saying, “I am as dumb as a calf, trying to divine the rules about such things” (567). For instance, he wants to invite Mrs. Brown to live in his house, but he isn’t sure if that would be appropriate in American society, even though it would be acceptable in Mexico.
Shepherd longs for a sense of home and goes to great lengths to find it. This leads him to have great sympathy for the ancient Aztecs and their search for a home, the subject of his second novel. He covets Rivera’s copy of the Codex Boturini, which chronicles their “peregrinations,” noting, “When completely unfolded, the codex stretched almost the whole length of the studio. That is how long it is possible to walk, looking for home” (193). This is analogous to Shepherd’s lifelong search for a place to belong. When he arrives in Asheville, he works to make a home for himself there. He feels particularly attached to the beautiful landscape and the house that he owns outright. This home begins to shatter when he is investigated and ostracized for his Communist ties, especially because his English is always a little “foreign.” During his trip to the Yucatan Peninsula, Mrs. Brown observes that he’s “home here. That’s good to see” (526). Shepherd retorts, “I don’t know that I’m home anywhere” (526). Shepherd later returns to Isla Pixol. Although the villagers ostracized him as a child, when he returns as an adult, Leandro greets him as “brother.” This suggests that it is possible Shepherd finally found a place to belong there if, indeed, he is still alive.
Unlock every key theme and why it matters
Get in-depth breakdowns of the book’s main ideas and how they connect and evolve.
- Explore how themes develop throughout the text
- Connect themes to characters, events, and symbols
- Support essays and discussions with thematic evidence