65 pages • 2 hours read
Jodi PicoultMercy
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
Mia reflects on the meaning of her name, derived from “mine” in Latin, and thinks about how she can only belong to herself; she has always felt separate from her parents, who functioned as a unit. She checks into the Wheelock Inn, not wanting to interact with Cam anymore. In her room, she writes a love note to Cam and burns it.
Cam goes to church to pray for Jamie and Maggie, and he confesses his sins of adultery. He is given penance, but he cannot get Mia out of his head. He leaves without remembering to pray for Maggie and Jamie.
Allie picks up Jamie from Angus’s house and takes him to Verona’s event, where she is reading from her book. Cam refused to accompany her and laughed at the idea of her finding someone else, prompting Allie’s decision to take Jamie. Despite other people’s protests at Jamie’s presence, Allie defends him and finds them seats. Cam, who arrives at the event after all, watches this but leaves shortly after, unable to get Mia out of his mind.
As Verona describes hell as “a choice people make for the afterlife” (86), Jamie thinks about Maggie and how despondent he feels without her. He realizes that he killed her partly for a selfish reason: He didn’t want to remember her as sick and dying. However, killing her was for nothing, as it didn’t bring the old Maggie back.
Graham brainstorms defense possibilities. Maggie’s death was a “mercy killing,” but euthanasia is not a strong enough defense, as it will mean challenging the way the laws themselves are written. Graham is not sure how he feels about euthanasia himself.
Cam asks Allie to go fishing with him, hoping to push thoughts of Mia out of his head. He teaches Allie to fly fish in the garden before they head out onto the water, and Allie expresses her fear of the rocking canoe. She catches a fish, and as she bends over to examine it, she accidentally capsizes the boat. She hears Cam laughing at her and decides to stay underwater to scare him. However, Cam quickly panics and searches for her frantically; when he finds her, he holds her close and begs her never to disappear again. Remembering Jamie’s assertion of the unequal balance of love in any marriage, Allie revels in Cam’s attention and does not tell him it was a joke.
In a flashback to 1992, Jamie and his colleagues discuss how to demarcate something that happens in virtual reality versus the outside world as real and unreal. Jamie suggests that for something to be real, it needs to have a tangible impact on the outside world. Rod presents the question of adultery, which has no physical impact even in the outside world save in the memories of the two participating adults: How does one define it as real or not if it happens in the virtual-reality world, where two adults participate in virtual sex with each other? Jamie holds firm that one would always be able to tell the difference between actual and virtual sex, asserting that only the former is real.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary
Jamie and Allie meet with Graham, who tells them the preliminary hearing will be held on Wednesday. Although Jamie is not optimistic, Graham offers hope that he will walk. They need a list of people to testify regarding Maggie’s illness and Jamie’s character, and Jamie asks Allie to go to Cummington, where Jamie and Maggie lived, to talk to prospective witnesses. Jamie trusts her over Graham, and she agrees.
Ellen, Cam’s mother, is a New Age believer after coming across a brochure following Ian’s death. Since then, she has found inner peace in the belief that she will reunite with Ian in another lifetime. Allie and Ellen practice making decoctions and poultices together every week, and as they work on a balm for burns, they discuss how Cam is angry with Ellen for offering a portion of the family cemetery to Jamie to bury Maggie.
Cam arrives late to Maggie’s funeral, which is attended by a considerable crowd, including Allie and Ellen. As Maggie’s coffin is lowered into the ground, Jamie breaks down, calling out, “Mo choridhe.” Allie takes him away, and Mia, who is also in attendance, comes up to Cam to ask him what the words mean. He doesn’t tell her that they mean “my heart.”
Angus wakes up from another dream about Cameron MacDonald I on the battlefield, hearing whimpers coming from Jamie’s room. He climbs into bed with his nephew, who wraps his arms around Angus and sobs.
In bed, Allie says that Cam is mad at her for helping Jamie, but Cam denies this. Allie insists that they talk through things, as she is due to leave for Cummington the next day, but Cam insists that they don’t need to talk. Allie reflects on how different she and Cam are, but as she brings it up, Cam has fallen asleep.
Cam runs into Mia at the coffee shop, and they discuss the long lists of tasks Allie has left for each of them. Cam learns that Mia used to waitress at a cafe in Italy called The Devil’s Hand and is stunned when he realizes they were in the same place at the same time—-he had seen the cafe but never visited it. Later, in her hotel room, Mia pens a note for Cam saying “Better late than never” and posts it, along with a napkin she saved from the cafe, to Cam at the station (118).
An unnamed person writes about missing talking to the addressee. They imagine running into the addressee again and talking for hours on end, though they have no idea what they would actually talk about anymore.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary
Cam receives Mia’s envelope and sends back a note asking her to have coffee with him. Allie makes dinner for Cam and Mia, whom she has invited over, much to Cam’s discomfort. Mia arrives with some wine, and Allie asks Cam to take care of Mia while Allie finishes up dinner. Cam and Mia acknowledge the awkwardness and tension between them.
At dinner, when Allie discovers that Mia can’t cook, she insists that Cam have Mia over for meals while Allie is away. As Mia does the dishes following the meal, Allie waits for her to leave so she can be alone with Cam. Cam joins Mia under the pretext of hurrying things up, and they plan to meet the following evening. Later that night, Cam and Allie make love.
The next day, after Allie leaves, Mia leaves a bouquet of pansies and apple blossoms on the windshield of Cam’s car: Pansies symbolize that the sender is thinking of the receiver, and apple blossoms symbolize temptation. Later that evening, Cam visits Mia at the flower shop, and they sleep together. Mia cries afterward, thinking of her parents’ love and how she has waited for Cam for too long.
Allie first visits Dr. Dascomb Wharton, Maggie’s doctor. He is not surprised to learn that Maggie has passed away. Maggie was not expected to survive beyond the year. Dr. Wharton is sure she was in physical pain, but he thinks she was hurt most at the thought of leaving Jamie behind.
Allie goes to Jamie and Maggie’s house, collecting important documents and looking for items they might need for the case. She tries on Maggie’s clothing and wig in an attempt to imagine what her life must have been like. Allie notices that despite everything else being in place, the bed is unmade; she imagines Jamie and Maggie making love one last time before leaving home and begins to weep.
In a flashback to 1993, Jamie does a body scan of Maggie to create a prototype of an adult woman for a virtual reality program. He marvels at the recreation of Maggie’s body created by the program, proclaiming it “perfect.”
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary
Audra Campbell is the assistant district attorney and the attorney assigned to Jamie’s case. During the preliminary hearing, she presents evidence and witnesses to justify the charge of Murder One. Graham wonders how Cam feels about possibly putting his cousin away for life. He enters a plea of temporary insanity, and the case is moved to be heard by a grand jury.
Ellen startles Mia when she arrives at the flower shop to pick up some herbs. Noticing that Mia seems a little flustered, Ellen presents her with crystals for calming and tranquility. Cam arrives with food for Mia and himself, and, noticing Cam’s demeanor around Mia, Ellen decides to join them for breakfast.
In Jamie’s home office, Allie comes across the virtual reality system, and when she tries on the glove and helmet, she finds herself inside the program for the architectural firm. She walks through a virtually designed elementary school, marveling at how realistic the details are. When she is prompted to choose a prototype, she realizes the adult woman is modeled after Maggie and shudders at the feeling of inhabiting another person’s skin.
On their third night together in the flower shop, Mia and Cam discuss their childhoods and deepest secrets. Cam reveals he wanted to be a travel writer but had to come back to Wheelock because of family and duty. Mia confesses she is in love with him, and though initially stunned, Cam reciprocates.
Cam runs into Jamie at the coffee shop over breakfast and begrudgingly makes conversation with him. A man with a gun arrives at the shop and charges at Jamie, calling him a murderer; realizing Jamie is doing nothing to defend himself, Cam manages to stop the man. However, when Jamie thanks Cam for saving his life, an angry and frustrated Cam tells him that if something like this happens again, he’ll let the person shoot Jamie.
In the flower shop, Cam reads an old newspaper article about a soldier who killed his wife’s suspected lover and is unsettled. Cam knows he can’t change what has been done, but he doesn’t want to ask Mia to leave, either. However, he sees a framed picture of himself and Allie on her work desk and thinks about how he is chained, while Mia is free. Cam tells Mia he cannot do this anymore.
Allie speaks to Watchell and Marie Spitlick, the elderly couple who were Jamie and Maggie’s neighbors, pretending to be Jamie’s distant cousin who hasn’t seen him in a while. The Spitlicks describe how in love Jamie and Maggie were and are worried that something may have happened to Maggie, as the couple haven’t been around for a few days. Watchell describes how, some months ago, an ambulance had to be called in the middle of the night because Maggie’s lungs reacted badly to some medicine and stopped working. Jamie came out onto the lawn with her, kissing her desperately, seemingly unaware that he was completely naked.
Cam goes to Mass on Sunday and, while waiting to go inside, sees Mia outside the church. He approaches her, but she leaves before he can get to her, and Cam goes home without attending Mass. Back in her room, a lovesick and heartbroken Mia packs up her things, writes a letter, locks her room, and leaves.
Part 1, Chapter 5-8 Analysis
The theme of Power Dynamics in Romantic Relationships is most prevalent in these chapters as more details emerge about the different couples and romantic equations in the book. Mia and Cam find themselves unable to stop thinking about each other in part because of their unresolved pasts. Mia’s fascination with Cam is further explained by the fact that she has witnessed a deep, passionate love between her own parents, such that she even felt excluded as their child. Indeed, after she and Cam are first intimate, she cries and thinks of her parents’ love, suggesting unresolved feelings stemming from a childhood where she was not her parents’ top priority. Similarly, Cam seeks freedom and a reprieve from his duties as clan leader and police chief. However, even as Cam contends with his attraction to Mia, he is equally compelled by his role as Allie’s husband. He attempts to push his feelings away by taking Allie fishing, and, for the first time, Allie senses the balance of power between them shift when Cam grows panicked when he believes Allie is dead or hurt. In this moment, Cam’s love for Allie is revealed; he considers her a constant, which perhaps allows him to take her for granted. Contrastingly, Mia has seemingly drifted into town after living all over the world, and like the café in Italy where they almost met, she represents adventure and a temptation away from mundane daily activities.
Cam’s tenderness toward Allie does not last, as she feels a growing rift between them, especially after she agrees to begin helping Jamie with his case. Allie is troubled by this tension even as Cam refuses to address it, thus capturing Allie’s underappreciated devotion; she is always eager to work things out but ultimately puts Cam’s needs before her own, as he is unwilling to compromise. Interestingly, Allie is beginning to see what a husband’s love can be like through the character of Jamie. Jamie breaks down crying at Maggie’s funeral. His reaction to Maggie’s death is not uncharacteristic, especially as a picture of his relationship with Maggie emerges through Allie’s conversations with their neighbors. The Spitlicks describe how in love the couple was and how devoted Jamie was to Maggie, even to the extent that he could forget his surroundings in deference to her pain, as evidenced by the incident with the ambulance in the middle of the night. In this sense, Jamie is a foil to Cam; he is emotional and romantic to the point of impracticality, while Cam is generally lacking in sentimentality, romance, and even communication.
This idea of a loss of touch with reality continues in these chapters, speaking to different themes throughout. Jamie’s obliviousness to his unclothed state while Maggie is being taken away captures the theme of The Dynamics of Power in Romantic Relationships in that he is rendered completely powerless through his love for Maggie. In a flashback to a conversation with his colleagues about what can be defined as real in the context of virtual reality, Cam and Mia’s affair is foreshadowed, as Jamie and his colleagues discuss whether adultery in virtual reality can be considered real. Jamie is similar to Allie, which demonstrates Allie’s lack of power in her husband’s decision to have an affair. Moreover, Cam’s affair is all the crueler because Mia works with Allie, and Allie remains trusting of them both. Allie could never imagine the reality of the situation, suggesting that her faith in Cam is, at this point in their relationship, based in non-reality and a version of Cam that does not exist. Other instances of experiences beyond the “real” or physical include Angus’s dream of Cameron MacDonald I on the battlefield once again, as well as Ellen’s subscription to New Age beliefs. Angus is alerted to his crying nephew by the spirit of his ancestor, leading him to go comfort Jamie. Meanwhile, Ellen copes with her grief by adopting New Age beliefs, which also intersects with the idea of deeply romantic relationships like that of Jamie and Maggie. In order for Ellen to survive the loss of her husband, she must believe that they will be reunited in another life; Jamie, on the other hand, is grief-stricken to find that his love for Maggie has only intensified in her absence.
Furthering the similarities between Ellen and Jamie, Ellen offers a place for Maggie in the family cemetery. Ellen’s actions indicate that, despite Jamie’s crime, The Weight of Familial Duty is still important, especially to the MacDonalds of Wheelock and Ellen. The decision causes her no heartache, but Cam chafes under it, not wanting to share any connections with Jamie. Despite having hired Graham, Cam is still determined to work with the prosecution, and Graham even wonders what Cam feels about potentially helping put his cousin away for life. Cam’s actions, however, are in line with the person he is: Despite having returned to Wheelock, his heart is not there. He wanted to be a travel writer, not return to his family’s hometown and take up traditional responsibilities, thus demonstrating that his relationship with The Weight of Familial Duty is something he finds almost unbearable. Indeed, rather than embrace his role, Cam takes the chance to metaphorically escape through his affair with Mia and push Jamie as far away as possible.
Cam’s desire for a life beyond Wheelock partially manifests in his affair with Mia, and in connection with this, there is a recurring motif of sin and hell. After first kissing Mia, Cam tries to atone for his actions by confessing in church and carrying out penance, but he cannot keep his mind away from Mia. Cam and Mia are further drawn to each other through their discovery that they have both traveled to the same places and were potentially in the same place at the same time, though their paths never crossed. The cafe that seals this realization is called The Devil’s Hand, where Mia worked and which Cam passed on a trip to Italy; it is this cafe’s napkin that Mia sends to Cam to initiate their affair. Later, she leaves a bouquet containing apple blossoms, which she notes symbolize temptation—a biblical reference to Eve and the Christian doctrine of original sin.
As Cam grapples with the moral dilemma of infidelity, Graham ponders on the moral dilemma surrounding euthanasia. He knows that Jamie’s act can be considered a “mercy killing,” especially in concurrence with Dr. Wharton’s revelation that Maggie was not expected to live much longer. However, Graham cannot use this as a legal defense, and he is not even clear about how he himself feels about it. Graham’s conflict undermines the theme of Mercy and the Law, as he knows there was no malice in Jamie’s actions, but they are illegal, nonetheless. Cam’s dilemma, on the other hand, represents a conflict between Familial Duty and Power Dynamics in Romantic Relationships; for the moment, the former wins, as Cam tells Mia he cannot continue like this, causing her to leave town. Indeed, Cam’s relationship with Mia relates to his family duties, as he seeks to escape them through her and all that she represents.
Related Titles
By Jodi Picoult
