Summary of Everything I Never Told You

In this summary, You will be given the main themes of this novel. 

Miscommunication 

Miscommunication is a big factor to why the Lee family is dysfunctional. According to (ipl.org), they state, “the lack of communication in the Lee family proves to be the most responsible for Lydia’s death.” This evidence depicts after the death of Lydia the Lee family noticed many problems that had been there. The main reason why miscommunication led to the death of Lydia was because the family could have noticed the problems Lydia was having, if they would have shown communication in their marriage Lydia would have been more comfortable doing so. It was clear since the beginning of the novel Marilyn and James got together for not the right reasons, they showed no signs of a real connection, this led to the little communication between them. In the novel there was an instance where Mariyln decides to abandon her family because she feels like she has not fulfilled her dream to continue to study. Not only does she abandon her family but she leaves without notice. 

Family Relationships

Additionally, another major theme in “Everything I Never Told You” is Family relationships. We see how many of these characters have a false sense of how their relationship works with another member of the family. For example, to continue with the marriage of Marilyn and James, they both married each other for the wrong reasons, but they don't know each other's reasons. “Still uncomfortable in his own skin, he is unable to see that his own desire for Lydia to be popular is as oppressive as Marilyn’s emphasis on the academic.” (Link) This depicts how James feels and explains why he married Mariyln, James since he was young has never felt comfortable in his own skin, he would always try to assimilate the American Culture. He did so much that he married Marilyn , an American. After the discovery of the pregnancy of Marilyn, they both marry quickly and move away together. This puts a halt to Marilyn's dream, who was trying to graduate from Harvard, in order to be part of the little percentage of women doctors. The author Celeste Ng portrays this theme with a very important symbol, the symbol in this case is Harvard University. We see that Mariyln and James meet at Harvard, but we also see that later in the book their oldest son Nathan decides to move far and attend Harvard, this leads to Lydia finding ways to fill a void Nathan filled, and this causing her friendship with Jack. As we notice Harvard plays a major part to why many things happen in this novel, everything goes back to Harvard good or not. 

Loneliness

 

Loneliness. Many of the characters feel a type of loneliness that leads them to do things that are not healthy. One character we can see this in is Lydia. Lydia who after the abandonment of her mother,  “It's not your fault, her father had said, but Lydia knew it was.” (Ng pg. 137). This unfortunate event led to Lydia feeling lonely, abandoned, and guilty. After her mother returned Lydia felt the great pressure to live up to her mothers expectations, which often led to her pushing away or sacrificing her own desires. In the novel we see a cookbook from Marilyn's mother, this cookbook is a symbol that represents the pressure Marilyn felt had to be a housewife, for this reason Lydia hides it.. If one pushes aside what they truly want , they will most likely go through the wrong path. James, Marilyn, and Lydia are great examples of this, their parents or someone they know pushed an expectation they couldn't fulfill, and once they noticed they couldn't fulfill it brought disaster.  Lastly, in the novel exclusion is seen very often, and the feeling of exclusion makes some of the characters have insecurities that leads to generational trauma. For most of James' life he felt excluded due to his race and how he looked. This was due to his parents' pressure to make him fit in, they will pressure him into making friends, talking more, etc… These expectations would be passed down to Nathan and Lydia causing the same disconnection they had with their parents. “There are many schools of psychology, and the acknowledgment of a universal drive to repeat the past is a thread that ties them together” (Link)