50 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren GroffFates and Furies
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Theater and Performance
Lotto’s career is based in the theater and all about performance. He gains confidence through pursuing acting and though he moves on to become a successful playwright he is merely playing the part as he sees fit, writing pieces merely to receive acclaim rather than further art. He is unable to be dishonest in his personal life while creating fiction for the stage. Contrarily, Mathilde’s life is a performance and filled with lies; there is the role she plays, and then there is who she really is.
Despite Lotto’s experience with acting, he’s unable to gauge the inauthentic and the false due to his trusting personality and needs Mathilde to perform the role of keeping bad people out of his life. In order to keep herself in Lotto’s life, Mathilde plays the part of his supportive wife, even though if he really knew her, both Mathilde and Chollie feel Lotto would not choose to stay in the relationship. Chollie waits in the wings for decades in order to bring down his best friend’s marriage. These lies by omission are performances done out of care for another. This extends to Aunt Sallie and Rachel pretending to cooperate in Antoinette’s plan to expose Mathilde while also supporting Mathilde and keeping her marriage safe.
Mythology
Groff alludes to many elements of mythology, most of which reference either Antiquity or Arthurian myths. The Fates, or Moirai, in Greek mythology are in charge of destiny. Lotto, the protagonist of “The Fates” section, either achieves greatness because he was predestined to or because the people around him make it his destiny through their support of and belief in him. The Furies, who are in charge of vengeance, are more closely aligned with Mathilde, who narrates the second section and seeks revenge on Chollie and some of Lotto’s family members. Further, Lotto takes creative license with the story of Antigone with his play Antigonad, while his own son, Roland, lives out a sort of Oedipal fantasy by sleeping with Mathilde. Roland stems from the protagonist of France’s oldest surviving work of literature, The Song of Roland. Meanwhile, Lancelot and Gawain are knights of the round table in Arthurian legend.
Reflections
When characters look at their counterparts’ reflections in mirrors and windows they are able to see more clearly the true nature of the other person, rather than remained trapped in their false perception of that person. For instance, when Lotto sees Mathilde through the window, staring at him and waiting for a reaction from him upon finding out of about Leo Sen’s death, he is able to realize there is a more sinister person underneath his idealized conception of Mathilde.
Children
Children are often used as a salve to fix broken people and relationships due to their propensity to provide unconditional love and constant purpose. Antoinette was a rather aimless housewife until finding joy in raising Lotto; later, Rachel helps heal ease Antionette’s grief after her husband, Gawain, dies. Because Mathilde cannot give Lotto a child when he is at his lowest, she buys him a puppy.
The loss of children is seen as detrimental to a family’s balance. Mathilde’s original family is broken after the death of her baby brother and Antoinette seems to be constantly suffering due to her inability to see Lotto in person.
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By Lauren Groff
