69 pages • 2 hours read
Victor LavalleThe Changeling: A Novel
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
The Challenges of Modern Parenting
Content Warning: The source material for this study guide includes depictions of domestic violence, child abuse, and the death of a child. It also describes instances of parents attempting to kill their children and references death by suicide and racist attitudes.
The Changeling explores the anxieties and responsibilities of modern parenting through the experiences of Apollo Kagwa, whose desire to overcome the trauma of his childhood defines him. Apollo believes that his own father, Brian West, abandoned him; despite this, Apollo still loves his father and grows up craving paternal affection. Apollo believes that if he can be a better father to his son, Brian Kagwa, then Apollo can affirm his reasons for existing in the world. This goal is complicated by Apollo’s ignorance of the fact that Brian West had, in fact, tried to kill him. Further, Apollo is raising his son, Brian Kagwa, in an age where the desire to be a good parent is complicated by social media and the Internet, which can be exploited by malicious forces (represented by Kinder Garten in this novel).
The novel characterizes Apollo’s parenting style as part of an emerging sociocultural phenomenon called “New Dads.” Modern parenting expects fathers to take a more hands-on role as parents, and New Dads are described as being affectionate, proactive, and proud of their fatherhood. This is a distinct turn away from the fathers of the previous generation, who were often cold, brutal, and—in Brian West’s case—absent. Apollo names his son after his father out of affection for his father as well as a subtle desire to correct his father’s behavior; Apollo wants to prove that he can be a better father than Brian West by raising Brian Kagwa with attention and care. While Apollo’s desire to redefine fatherhood is a step in the right direction, it is nevertheless born out of trauma rather than a genuine desire for love and connection. As a result, Apollo often feels a need for social affirmation for his own actions—something that his wife, Emma, never expects since women are socially expected to do the tasks that Apollo expects praise for.
This is why Apollo shows off his parenting deeds online. His actions draw attention to the fact that while social media and technology influence parenting, they can also bring danger. Apollo initially shares photos of baby Brian for Emma’s sake, but when he receives affirmation from his immediate social network, he starts to wear his fatherhood as a badge of pride. He shares multiple photos of Brian and shares information about his family without editing out personal details. When Emma calls Apollo out on his behavior, he quietly defends his way of raising Brian and subsequently resents his partner. This leads Apollo to eventually antagonize Emma. He accuses her of being a problem parent while also ignoring her concerns that someone is using the information he posts on the Internet to maliciously target them. In this way, the novel shows that the social approbation that the Internet can deliver blinds people to its dangers, especially regarding the privacy and safety of children.
Posing as William Wheeler, Kinder Garten continuously exploits Apollo’s desire to be a good father, even after baby Brian’s apparent death. He appeals to Apollo’s sense of fatherhood by describing himself as someone who previously approached parenting in a traditional way but would now like to become a New Dad. Apollo believes Kinder Garten’s story because the conversion from traditional father to New Dad resonates with the difference between Brian West and Apollo’s parenting styles. This is also why Apollo’s discovery of Kinder Garten’s true intentions feels especially impactful to him. He is disillusioned with the way his good will as a New Dad opened him up to weakness while also exposing his son to danger.
The emotional resolution of the novel comes from Apollo learning the truth about his father’s attempt to kill him. This revelation dramatizes how people cope with and move on from familial trauma. Apollo’s mother admits that while this truth is traumatic, her failure to tell him what had happened set his distorted expectations about fatherhood. She assures him that he and his father are different people and that he will not make the same mistakes that Brian West had made.
Consequently, Apollo uses his reconciliation with Emma and his rescue of baby Brian from the troll to tell himself a new story about what it means to be a good parent. He feels grateful about the fact that he will be there to experience whatever comes their way without blaming himself for the problems that will inevitably arise between him and Brian. By defeating the troll and saving Brian, Apollo scores a symbolic triumph over his trauma as well as over limiting definitions of fatherhood.
The Shortcomings of Simplistic, Moralizing Stories
The Changeling is an interrogation of fairy tales as a form of storytelling. During the middle sections of the novel, Apollo makes the acquaintance of Cal, who encourages him—and by extension, the reader—to reassess his assumptions about fairy tales. Cal notes that though classical fairy tales are rooted to a particular historical moment, their continued relevance in the present day speaks to the hidden truths that such stories reveal. This clashes with the popular understanding of their purpose, which is to moralize the world. The novel draws attention to the idea that the simplistic moral lessons espoused in fairy tales cannot capture the complexity of lived experience.
Cal offers the story of Rapunzel as an example of this idea. In her retelling of the story, Cal emphasizes the failure of each guardian figure to properly guard Rapunzel and protect her from danger. Thus, Rapunzel originally functioned as a riddle over the right way to protect one’s children; there was never a demand to extract a moral takeaway from the story because such discussions were meant to come after the story had been told. However, Cal explains that the moral function of fairy tales only arose when the upper classes used this morality to separate themselves from the lower classes, operating under the assumption that they were better or at least more noble in spirit than those living on the fringes of society.
This commentary resonates with the way Apollo tells himself a particular story about fatherhood to establish his moral basis for good parenting. The reason the novel continuously revisits the moment of Brian West’s reappearance is to show how its meaning shifts in Apollo’s consciousness. The most significant element of that memory is the phrase that Brian utters—“You’re coming with me” (8)—which Apollo echoes to his son as a promise that he will never leave him alone. The phrase therefore functions as a moral imperative: Apollo can convince himself he is a good father as long as he never consciously leaves Brian alone. However, when Apollo learns that his father had intended to kill him, it nullifies the value of that imperative. Similarly, he breaks away from previous assumptions he had made about his relationships with others, such as believing that William was a sympathetic figure and that Emma was the antagonist in their relationship all along. Apollo realizes that real people challenge the easy binaries of fairy tales; Emma’s violence against the changeling shows that real life decisions cannot be easily classified as either good or evil. As the novel closes, Apollo leans toward a more nuanced approach to parenting that eludes simple definition. He accepts that unhappiness and misfortune will come out of his relationship with baby Brian, but he also knows that none of those things will fundamentally define his value as a father.
Cal concludes that bad fairy tales moralize while good fairy tales tell the truth. Applying this insight to modern life, Apollo’s story shows that the best stories do not tell people how to live; instead, they get them to think about the experience of living so that they can find their right path by themselves.
The Magic That Underlies Everyday Existence
The Changeling intertwines the worlds of fantasy and reality. New York City, as it is depicted in the novel, is not fully fantastical. Rather, magic usually mingles with the real world, but it remains unnoticeable to most people. Moreover, the magical qualities of this world are open to interpretation. While one person might call something an act of magic, another person may be able to provide a reasonable, nonmagical explanation of what happened. Thematically, this shows that people make active decisions to believe what they want, and these decisions can affect relationships in significant ways.
At the start of the novel, Apollo is not inclined to believe in magic the way Emma does, but he eventually comes to realize his ideas about the world are completely wrong. When Emma tells him that she met a witch during her travels in Brazil, his reaction shows his mocking disbelief—he cuts the red string that the witch had tied around Emma’s wrist in a daring attempt to prove his love for her. Later, when Emma shares her fears that someone is plotting something sinister against their child, Apollo refuses to believe her. His perspective only shifts once he meets Cal, who convinces him that the world is easily affected by a subtle magic called glamor—this causes things to appear a certain way when they are, in fact, something else entirely. Cal urges Apollo to visit the grave of his son and learn the truth about his nature by unearthing his corpse. When Apollo sees that the corpse is not his son but a changeling used to deceive him, his sense of reality is completely thrown. He learns that he cannot trust his interpretation of events alone and that his preconceived notions about the way the world works are false.
Cal tells Apollo that love can enable people to do improbable things. When Emma leaves North Brother Island, Cal claims that she saw her glowing; Emma maintains this aura when she later appears to Jorgen as a witch. Lillian also tells Apollo that when she discovered that Brian was trying to kill him, she tapped into an unexpected strength that allowed her to overcome Brian. As Apollo reassesses his interpretation of the world, he becomes more inclined to believe in these seeming improbabilities. While navigating the dark tunnel out of Kinder Garten’s lair, he asks Emma to use her glow to light the way, and this prompts her to explain how this ability works.
Toward the end of the novel, it becomes more fantastical—Apollo and Emma fight the troll that has been keeping their son captive. Apollo never remarks on the strangeness of the troll because he now accepts the fantastical reality in which he lives, believing it will allow him to renew his relationship with Emma and baby Brian. When Apollo saves Brian from the troll, he uses this experience as evidence that he is a good enough father to his son, which brings his journey of acceptance and belief full circle.
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By Victor Lavalle
