56 pages • 1 hour read
Alasdair GrayPoor Things
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992A 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
Scottish National Identity
Content Warning: This section discusses pedophilia, incest, and non-consensual medical experimentation.
Poor Things is partly a story about Scottish identity, which forms an important motif in the text. The author Alasdair Gray was a Scottish nationalist who pushed for Scotland to become independent of the United Kingdom. In Poor Things, he uplifts elements of Scottish culture, referencing Scottish poets, scientists, and history. Most of these references are in the book’s footnotes, which also describe major landmarks in Glasgow. Although the book is something of a love letter to Glasgow, Gray does not shy away from the city’s poverty and injustices. Gray illustrates the specific class disparities in Scotland by contrasting McCandless’s working-class upbringing with Godwin and Victoria’s wealthier backgrounds.
When Bella and Duncan visit Europe, some of the people they meet do not understand the difference between Scotland and England; the Russian man in particular finds the distinction meaningless. This somewhat frustrating experience is something many Scottish people will still be familiar with today: Although Scotland is part of the UK, Scottish people have their own culture and identity separate from England. Victoria is a notable character in that she comes from England but spends most of her life in Scotland. Despite not being Scottish by birth, she becomes very involved with Scottish politics and culture, to the point where people in her later years “amuse [her] sometimes by saying how SCOTTISH” (336) she is. Ironically, despite the importance of Scottish identity to the book, the film adaptation of Poor Things is set in London.
Pregnancy and Parenthood
Motifs of pregnancy and parenthood arise again and again in Poor Things. In McCandless’s narrative, Victoria was pregnant with the baby whose brain became Bella. Godwin sees himself as Bella’s father, even though he would also like to have sex with her. McCandless describes Godwin as a Frankenstein-like person who was created, not born. This motif harkens back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which was written in the aftermath of the death of Shelley’s infant daughter. Frankenstein tells the story of a man who creates life without involving a woman (or a pregnancy), giving him a power over creation not typically granted to cisgender men. Godwin assumes a similar level of power in McCandless’s narrative. He sees himself not just as a parent but as a god, even though it is extremely unlikely that the men in this narrative would consider women who give birth to be gods in their children’s lives.
Victoria’s letter sheds new light on this motif. She asserts that she was not pregnant when she met Godwin and McCandless, though she did later have three sons. Far from seeing herself as the god of her children, Victoria feels a profound grief and frustration over her sons’ choices to take part in the First World War. Parenthood, for Victoria, is a source of deep regret and pain. Interestingly, although she makes no allusions to any pedophilic desire in her own writing, those who review A Loving Economy accuse her of advocating for incest between parents and children. Nobody makes similar accusations toward Godwin: McCandless is uncomfortable with Godwin’s desire for Bella, but he also desires her and does not object on the basis that Godwin is effectively Bella’s father. While the text of Victoria’s pamphlet remains ambiguous, the harsh public reaction to her work speaks to the misogyny of Victorian Britain.
“Poor Things”
As the fictionalized Gray notes in the book’s Introduction, almost “every single character… is called poor or call themselves that sometime or other” (12). Conceptions of poverty become an important motif in the text. Some characters are literally, financially poor, most notably McCandless. Both McCandless and Duncan, through their respective narratives, frame themselves primarily as victims of circumstances outside their control; they see themselves as poor things. As Victoria asserts, McCandless tries to make himself feel better by writing his narrative and framing Bella and Godwin as “poor things” that have no past, and as freaks of nature that are fundamentally different from everyone else. “Poor things” is a phrase that connotes condescension, not a relationship of equals.
The only character who does not appear to think of themselves as a “poor thing” is Victoria, who focuses on doing what needs to be done and on helping those around her. In her letter, she uses the word “poor” to refer to many other people, but she never uses it to describe herself.
