I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-7

Chapters 8-10

Chapters 11-13

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Truthfulness of Thought Versus the Dishonesty of Actions

Reid opens I’m Thinking of Ending Things with the argument that only thoughts are truthful while actions or behaviors performed in front of others can be dishonest and unreliable. Because a thought can’t be “faked,” thoughts are the only reality. Jake returns to this theme frequently in his writing and questions the actions of others as manifestations of his social anxiety and isolation. Furthermore, the narrative structure of the novel supports this theme of the truthfulness of thoughts, as the protagonist’s thoughts account for the majority of the narration. Reid thus invites his readers to pay closer attention to the thoughts conveyed by the protagonist and through her conversations with young Jake rather than concentrating on the plot-based actions each perform.

The protagonist’s thoughts and how they are focused on making the decision to “end things” present a unique narrative structure that reflects this theme. “We’re never inside someone else’s head. We can never really know someone else’s thoughts. And it’s thoughts that count. Thought is reality. Actions can be faked” (162). That actions can be faked corresponds to dishonest people, such as Jake’s mother’s friend Ms. Veal who he believes, despite her seeming cheerfulness, poisoned his mother.

The protagonist’s struggle to understand her sense of self and need for solitude in the context of a relationship demonstrates how Jake struggles to understand how never truly knowing another person’s thoughts can possibly work in an intimate relationship: “There are ways we have to act. There are things we have to say. But we can think whatever we want […] thoughts are the only reality” (175). The use of “have to act” in this quote demonstrates the constraints of socializing Jake repeatedly expresses discomfort with, as these obligations to act a certain way can contribute to dishonest actions. For Jake, who values truth, logic, and connection, the possibility of never knowing another person’s thoughts (i.e., who they truly are) and only having their actions (i.e., their social persona) as the basis for a relationship is not worth the sacrifice of one’s solitude and sense of self.

In the context of Jake’s writing, the ultimate truthfulness of thoughts is provided through the protagonist. The reader is privy to her thoughts and can therefore feel more intimately connected with her. In contrast, only young Jake’s actions are known while his thoughts remain a mystery. The protagonist struggles to accept this, as his actions are sometimes confusing, such as when young Jake ignores her questions, is silent at dinner with his parents, or chases after the man in the school window. In this way, Reid uses the characters of the protagonist and young Jake to explore the implications of this theme and how it can be employed.

Ipseity and the Multiplicity of Identity

From the Latin term ipse, meaning selfhood or individuality, Reid presents the theme of ipseity in Chapter 2. Jake explains to the protagonist he would have preferred to name his trivia team “Ipseity” because it would imply a connectedness and oneness among the team members regardless of their individual identities. This theme is encountered in several ways in the novel, from Jake’s writing to the interactions between the protagonist and young Jake.

Since Jake mostly composed I’m Thinking of Ending Things as a story to help decide whether to kill himself, each the novel’s characters is a figment of Jake’s identity or memory. The unnamed protagonist represents Jake’s generalized struggle to connect in a relationship, using cues from his experiences with Steph and the girl at the pub on trivia night. The protagonist’s belief in solitude as the determinant of identity without the influence of others (“How can we know ourselves without this solitude?” [72]) supports the need for Jake to make this decision based only on his thoughts. To personify the doubts and motivations he needs to surmount before deciding, Jake allows each of the characters to share an aspect of Jake’s current personality and experience, from the protagonist recognizing herself in the photos in the farmhouse to Jake’s mother’s struggle with tinnitus and needing a hearing aid. Even the protagonist’s driving instructor represents a figment of Jake: his loneliness. The quote from Carl Jung the instructor tells the protagonist further emphasizes this theme, as it discusses the nature of identity as a question that must be answered by the self before society imposes obligations, falsehoods, and judgments on one’s self-perception: “I myself am a question which is addressed to the world, and I must communicate my answer, for otherwise, I am dependent upon the world’s answer” (42). Jake values his sense of self; therefore, the characters he creates in his writing are all different aspects of his perceived identity that need to agree with the decision he must make.

The protagonist and young Jake interact with the theme of ipseity first in the protagonist’s estimation that she and young Jake attract more attention as a couple than as individuals (15). Jake’s belief that their relationship has a valency—and therefore the ability to collect outside influences to change—further supports this notion. Jake’s uncanny impersonation of her during dinner with his parents (“He’s becoming me in front of everyone” [99]) further signifies their connection as being born from the same mind and that she is a facet of his identity he can easily and fully adopt. At dinner, the protagonist notices Jake’s connection to his parents when she thinks, “Seeing someone with their parents is a tangible reminder that we’re all composites” (96). This composite nature of identity formation corresponds with Jake’s idea of ipseity being capable of representing multiple individualities as a single selfhood.

The Circular Nature of Time

As Jake approaches old age and considers suicide, his reflections on what could have happened between him and a woman simultaneously represent the novel’s theme of the circular nature of time. As a physicist and scientist, Jake uses scientific philosophy to help him make his decision by having the protagonist and young Jake discuss these concepts in dialogue. This allows him to interact with the perception of his younger self as if he were present, dispelling the notion of time as linear. Furthermore, Reid structures his novel so the final topic the Speakers discuss is the necessity of reading Jake’s writing from end to beginning to fully understand it.

Being unable to distinguish between an ending and a beginning is a frequent motif employed by Reid to explore this theme. Of young Jake’s former girlfriend, he says, “It didn’t start out any more serious than when it ended” (68), signifying that the ending of the relationship was the same as the beginning, as if time were circling back on itself and keeping them in the same position. At the conclusion of the novel, when the protagonist has finally made her decision while in young Jake’s car outside the high school, she thinks, “I knew Jake and I weren’t going to last. I did. I knew from the beginning” (159). The parallel structure of these two statements (1) reflects the shared identity between young Jake and the protagonist, as each believes a relationship to have existed in a circularity, and (2) supports the novel’s theme of the circular nature of time, where whatever intimate progress was made during the middle of either relationship doesn’t matter. The ends and beginnings are all that matter and, furthermore, the ends and beginnings are the same.

This corresponds to the figurines displayed in the farmhouse’s living room, which the protagonist describes as being stuck in an infinite loop of a repeated action (86). Like the figures, Jake feels himself to be stuck in the same cycle of isolation, failed relationships, and being unable to connect with others. The protagonist and Jake discuss the nature of space and its lack of beginning or end (35), corresponding to Jake’s desire to better understand and accept the notion of time as circular and repetitive.

On the last page of the novel, one of the Speakers suggests the other read Jake’s writing, “[b]ut maybe start at the end. Then circle back” (210). The necessity of contextualizing the final moments of Jake’s life before the rest can be understood requires the Speakers to “circle back” and return again to the end after the beginning has been read. In this way, Reid suggests I’m Thinking of Ending Things does not correspond to a linear notion of time. Rather, it requires the reader to engage with time in the same way Jake does.