Tree of Smoke
68 pages • 2-hour read
Denis JohnsonTree of Smoke
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.
Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section includes discussion of death.
Doubles and Repetitions
Doubles and repetitions comprise an important motif in the novel, highlighting The Search for Faith and Meaning in an Arbitrary World. Characters are often presented as mirror images and pairs to amplify the repetitive meaninglessness of existence. At the same time, characters are drawn to the doubles of their loved ones to give shape to this meaninglessness. For instance, Skip is drawn to Kathy because, as he says, “You were a widow, like my mom. Child of one widow, lover to another. You scared me. Your passion and your belief. Your grief and tragedy. My mom had that too […] So I ran away from both you gals” (609). While Kathy is projected as a double of Beatrice—the two women even have similar antiwar views—Skip is the physical double of Kathy’s late husband, Timothy. So strong is the resemblance between Skip and Timothy that Kathy seeks out Skip the moment she first sees him.
The mothers in the text are also doubles of each other, each navigating a chaotic world through a different model of spirituality. While Beatrice believes the American offensive in Vietnam is pointless and the violence anti-Christian, May thinks that killing atheistic communists is a Christian duty. Different as the mothers are from each other, they are united in their worry and concern for their sons, as well as their marginalization. James only calls May to tell her he has taken an extension on his tour, while Skip rarely writes to Beatrice and does not visit her while in the US.
Situations and images recur in the novel as well, as when both Bill and James call home during their deployment, with neither able to communicate their true feelings or despair. Names are also repeated, a tactic suggesting that one character is just a version of another. The name William, for instance, belongs to Skip, Bill, and even Jimmy, whose first name Billem is a corruption of William. This pattern implies that Jimmy is a twisted variation of Skip himself.
Tree of Smoke
The tree of smoke functions as both a motif and a symbol in the text, highlighting The Search for Faith and Meaning in an Arbitrary World. The phrase “tree of smoke” first appears in Chapter 3, with Father Carignan glimpsing a column of black smoke in the distance and being reminded of a line from the Book of Joel in the Bible: “There shall be blood and fire and palm trees of smoke,” and Carignan reflects that the line is “usually translated ‘pillars of smoke,’ but the original Hebrew said ‘palm trees of smoke’” (72).
The biblical reference is repeated in Chapter 7, when Skip goes through the colonel’s notes after his death. Since the quote describes signs of the apocalypse (the day when God holds judgment on all souls), the colonel’s “tree of smoke” symbolizes a cataclysm: a change that is destructive but necessary. Inspired by the biblical description, the colonel wants his project to affect the war in Vietnam and manipulate American policy. As he tells Jimmy and Skip, he wants to filter the intel going back to the American authorities so that they will stop making foolish and dangerous decisions, such as escalating the conflict.
While the colonel’s enterprise has a certain nobility to it, the phrase “tree of smoke” also symbolizes impermanence and cloudiness, suggesting the meaninglessness and failure of the mission. The tree of smoke imagery recurs in this sense throughout the novel, such as in the instance of Jimmy’s farcical “sacrifice,” as he lies naked next to the pyre and watches “the upward-rushing mist and smoke in the colossal firelight and wait[s] for the clear light, for the peaceful deities, the face of the father-mother” (595). Jimmy is hoping that his tree of smoke will reveal an epiphany, but there is none at hand, indicating the fruitless nature of his search.
Letters
Illustrating the themes of The Impossibility of Simple Ethical Choices During Armed Conflict and The Search for Faith and Meaning in an Arbitrary World, letters constitute a key motif in the text. Kathy’s letters to Skip, and Skip’s last letter to Kathy, cast a spotlight on these themes, with Kathy explaining to Skip how the suffering she witnesses tests her faith, tempting her to stop searching for meaning. Skip’s letter to Kathy develops the theme of moral relativism, as it shows that Skip has finally abandoned his binary view of “good” and “bad,” accepting that ethics is a complex field.
Letters also act in a symbolic capacity, representing truth and absolution. Beatrice’s letters to Skip are a metaphor for revelation, since she gently prods her son to face the truth he avoids. In an early letter, Beatrice writes, “I know you joined the government to be of service to the world, but our leaders are sending good boys to wreck another country and maybe lose their lives without any sound explanation” (145). Beatrice’s last letter to Skip, delivered posthumously, raises the important question of whether Skip is persisting in the war because he is stuck. Due to its prescient tone, Beatrice’s last letter acts as a catalyst for Skip to break out of his stasis and begin changing his worldview. Significantly, Beatrice’s name itself evokes Dante’s angelic muse and guide in The Divine Comedy, suggesting Skip’s mother acts as his spiritual mentor in the novel.
The symbolism of letters as missives of truth is also seen in Eddie and Skip’s mutual letters, the process of writing enabling characters to tell each other truths they cannot face to face. For instance, Eddie apologizes in a letter to Skip for the “botched thing” in Mindanao, calling it “an intolerable mistake, and very much regretted” (232). In this sense, letters help the characters to reveal themselves more intimately to one another.
Unlock the meaning behind every key symbol & motif
See how recurring imagery, objects, and ideas shape the narrative.
- Explore how the author builds meaning through symbolism
- Understand what symbols & motifs represent in the text
- Connect recurring ideas to themes, characters, and events