52 pages • 1 hour read
Fredrik BackmanUs Against You
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A 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
Independence and Dependence Within a Community
Throughout Us Against You, characters struggle with their independent selves in the context of their community. Characters feel isolated in this small town in the middle of the woods, and they struggle to decide if this solitariness is positive or negative. Backman explores this theme through the examination of how different characters navigate their individual personas with their roles in society. Every character in Us Against You has their own inner turmoil. Peter has guilt over his daughter’s rape and the subsequent and related dissolution of Beartown Ice Hockey; Kira has oppressed her own personal and professional goals; Maya struggles with the trauma of her rape; Ana is all alone and responsible for her alcoholic father; Benji is afraid of becoming like his father; and Teemu carries the burden of taking care of everyone.
Because these issues are personal, the characters hide feelings and realities from one another. In their community, standing out is one way of being rejected, so they hold tightly to their own truths. However, Backman shows that in internalizing these parts and effectively rejecting help from others, the problems only get worse. Keeping one’s independence sacred doesn’t solve everything. Even Benji, who fears that responsibility for others sacrifices his freedom, learns that lesson when he puts his own fear of bullying aside to help the town rebuild their morale in the hockey game against Hed.
The novel is about individuals who make up a whole, so it makes sense that the idea of community over individual is an important theme. However, Backman is not just concerned with how a town can come together and support one another. In fact, the theme of people needing other people is evidenced in one-on-one personal relationships. Ana has almost no family, but at least she has Maya and then Vidar. Peter and Kira feel lonely because they stop turning to one another for support. Benji finds real love in his sisters. Teemu defends his family and the Pack because of deep-rooted love for them. None of these characters want to be on their own, even when they think they do.
Making Choices: Instinct Versus Reason
On the one hand, Backman characterizes many characters through the lens of violence and a strong lack of impulse control. The men in particular tend to fight without any affront, and confrontations are escalated into violence for the sake of the violence itself. William, Benji, Teemu, and Leo all feel pleasure in escaping into violence, whereas Peter can’t become violent even though he wants to.
The characters are introspective, and except for Vidar, the intermittent explosions of violence are a choice the characters make to lose themselves to an expression of anger. Choice is also explored through bullying in school and online. Even adults escalate the conflict by choosing to participate in an anonymous discussion culture aimed at tearing others down. When Maya is raped, the town can choose to side against her rapist. When Benji is outed, the town can choose kindness and acceptance. Backman uses this theme to demonstrate how choices have meaningful ripple effects on others.
For example, Zackell separates her emotions from her actions and has strong control over her instincts. When people attempt to bully or disrespect her, she chooses to give them little to no reaction. She doesn’t care what people think about her, and she actively makes decisions that are right for her hockey team regardless of whether others think it’s not a good decision. Zackell’s commitment to choice and fairness poses an important dichotomy with other characters and their identities formed by giving in to instinct over reason.
Coping with Trauma
In Us Against You, several characters must endure the pain of childhood and adolescent trauma in a damaging cycle. Maya is the central character whose trauma (and the cycle of the pain she carries) goes through waves of development. The book begins with Maya’s memory of holding a gun to her rapist’s head, a memory that haunts her instead of helps her. Maya relies on Ana for escapism: To cope with her trauma, Maya and Ana camp out on a little island on the lake. Maya’s primary way of handling trauma is to run away because she can see the ripple effect of her trauma on her family. She sees that her little brother is stressed and that her parents are becoming more emotionally distant from one another.
To avoid the cycle of trauma, Ana and Maya escape and live with the pretense of freedom. When school starts and Maya must confront many of her harassers and bullies, she relives the trauma. Maya keeps her head down, sticks with Ana, and tries to block out the noise of judgment radiating off of her peers, but she can’t. Backman thus shows the reader that Maya’s trauma is multi-layered: the rape itself; the judgment of her by the town because of the aftermath of the rape; and the emotional toll it takes on her family. Maya finally finds release when her brother takes her to Jeanette’s MMA class. Maya has an almost out-of-body experience when she learns how strong her body is, and how physical and mental focus keeps her mind away from the pain of her trauma.
Maya is not healed by the end of the novel, but she finally finds an outlet to cope with her physical and psychological trauma. Backman’s storyline for Maya shows the reader that beyond family support, therapy, and friendship, there are many ways to cope with trauma because there are many forms of trauma. Benji and Teemu are both examples of this theme as well. Benji and Teemu were traumatized by their childhoods; the suicide of Benji’s father haunts him as though his own suicide is imminent, while Teemu’s burden of his addicted mother and absent father makes him grow up painfully fast.
Benji copes with his trauma in hockey and in camping; he constantly is on the lookout for trees to climb and places to hide. Teemu copes with his trauma by upholding the promise of the Pack and feeling the strength of his own power. Like Maya, Benji has an out-of-body experience that helps him recognize the value of his life, even with his scars. Backman wants to portray trauma as something ingrained that can be mediated when characters search inside themselves and discover their own powers.
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By Fredrik Backman
