46 pages • 1 hour read
Ottessa MoshfeghLapvona
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Parts 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4 Summary: “Winter”
Villiam’s manor prepares for Christmas and the coming of Agata’s baby. Ina is hired to be Agata’s servant and midwife, and the two of them are sequestered from the rest of the manor to minimize any risk of injury or illness. Ina keeps Agata drugged with herbal concoctions to the point that Agata doesn’t resist her captivity.
Villiam experiences a deepening sense of anxiety as he tries to mature into the role of the father of the new Savior. He ceases his daily entertainment, replaces Clod with Lispeth because she is more serious, and worries about how this new lifestyle will age him. He also fears that his new, holy role will attract danger, so he instructs the servants to bury all the wine far away from the estate for fear that it might be poisoned.
Grigor visits the manor once a week to drop off the herbs that Ina uses in her medicines. During these visits, Grigor begins to converse with Jude, whom Villiam has hired to replace Luka as the manor’s horseman; he is drawn to Jude’s solitary, unconventional lifestyle and harsh past. Jude tells Grigor the truth of the exchange involving Jacob and Marek and says that he is the father of Agata’s child. Grigor feels newly aware of how society operates, which strains his relationship with his family, who still equate suffering and hard labor with goodness.
Jude sleeps in the stables, sharing a stall with the blinded horse. Jude does not acknowledge Marek, nor vice versa, each regarding the other as a punishment sent by God. Having buried what he thought was his father’s torso, Marek believes Jude is back from the dead. Meanwhile, Jude tries to ignore Agata’s presence at the manor, preferring to think of his last encounter with her as nothing more than a dream despite knowing that he fathered the child she now carries. He is attracted to Lispeth because of her youth and malleability.
On Christmas Eve, Marek wakes up and immediately asks Petra, his new servant, for a bottle of strong wine. Marek is also experiencing deepening anxieties, fearing the baby will replace him in Villiam’s affections and worrying what his own role will be in the household. He remains drunk all day. Father Barnabas has overseen the creation of a crèche in the stables as he does every Christmas. Villiam tells Lispeth that on Christmas Day, she will play the role of Mary to his Joseph.
As is tradition, Villiam sends his guardsman, Klarek, to select guests from the village to join the manor for meals on Christmas Eve and day. The villagers believe the choice reflects certain qualities or worthiness, but Klarek actually selects the families at random. A small family of four with two young children joins the manor for Christmas eve. The family is nervous, wearing their red clothes from the wedding to try to impress. The meal goes awkwardly, with both Villiam and Father Barnabas terse and distracted by worries about how they are perceived while Marek grows increasingly drunk. Father Barnabas tries to recite the Christmas story but can barely remember it. Marek asks the villagers if they remember him, but the priest discourages this conversation. Villiam becomes fixated on the young son of the couple and invites him to join him later in a bath where he’ll teach him to swim, but Father Barnabas becomes disturbed when someone mentions the church choir, which he didn’t know existed, and requests that they finish the meal in silence.
After the meal, everyone but Father Barnabas goes to the stables to see the crèche. Marek thinks back to past Christmases when he and Jude observed the holiday with self-flagellation. Lispeth is missing from the stables, and Villiam calls for her but gets no response. Villiam asks Marek to play Mary, but even in his drunken state, Marek feels that would be wrong. Jude calls out from the darkness and volunteers, but at that moment Villiam’s torch accidentally sets the crèche on fire. The servants and guests work through the night to put the fire out and protect the livestock. In the morning, Villiam pins the entire incident on Jude.
The next morning, Grigor and his son and daughter-in-law, Jon and Vuna, are invited to the manor. Jon and Vuna bicker on the walk; Grigor’s odd behavior and insistence that the world they know is a sham has put both in a bad mood. Vuna is also pregnant, although she has not yet told anyone because she has previously miscarried and wants to be sure the pregnancy will take. When they reach the manor, Villiam is disappointed by how impoverished and dour the two look. Father Barnabas is completely distracted, as he has suffered nightmares ever since learning of the coming of the new Christ. On Christmas Eve he had a particularly vivid dream of the cavalry of hell coming for him, and he woke feeling that he had “gone insane.” He then saw a bottle of wine sent to Villiam from Ivan, Dibra’s brother, and out of fear that it was poisoned quickly stashed it in the cellar without telling anyone.
Before the meal, Grigor says a prayer while Villiam and Father Barnabas eat distractedly. Father Barnabas muses on the wine he stashed in the cellar, recognizing the power it gives him and wondering if he should kill someone. He ponders whether he has wasted his life serving Villiam and might have been happier living a simpler, ordinary existence. Meanwhile, Villiam is growing bored with the religious observances and misses the days when he made profane jokes during the holiday. He thinks he might be able to let his guard down a little since no children are present and proposes a game: Anyone can ask him a question, and he must answer truthfully. The priest excuses himself from the game, and on the way to his chambers he asks Lispeth to sleep with him. When she vehemently refuses, he tells her he was testing her and encourages her to enjoy the bottle of wine he stashed in the cellar. Meanwhile, the game takes a grotesque turn, and the villagers grow increasingly uncomfortable with Villiam’s questions until Grigor suggests they take their leave. Villiam urges them to stay, asking if they don’t find him interesting. Grigor simply replies, “I pray your death is quick” (279). Finally, Grigor asks Villiam if he hoarded water over the summer, causing the drought. Villiam refuses to answer and ends the game. The guests leave, and Lispeth lures a dejected Villiam up to bed, promising to bring him some special wine.
Jon and Vuna resume their bickering as soon as they leave the manor but quickly make up. Grigor trails behind, fantasizing about exposing the corruption of Villiam but knows the villagers have no chance against his armed guards. In the end, he acknowledges that all lords are corrupt and the only way to be free of that corruption is to live outside of society. Meanwhile, Jon wants to return home and tell the village the truth about Villiam’s profane behavior, but Vuna convinces him to lie so that they won’t be considered outsiders.
By midnight, Villiam is dead next to Lispeth, both of them having drunk the poisoned bottle of wine. Father Barnabas discovers them but concludes that he’s hallucinating. He shuts himself in his room, but when he hears banging on his door, he fears it is the devil and hangs himself. In reality, the “knocking” was just a draft.
Part 5 Summary: “Spring”
A year has passed since the novel’s opening, and Marek is now lord of Lapvona. He has little need to manage the manor or its wealth since Ivan sends staff to do it for him. Despite having risen to the top of society, Marek is still unhappy. Jude continues to want nothing to do with him, even when Marek buys him new lambs; Jude ignores these, stating, “Babes don’t stay babes” (292). Marek sees nothing of Agata, as she remains sequestered. The one task Marek is charged with is burying Villiam’s body, and he makes Jude do this. Villiam’s grave is so shallow that wildlife slowly picks apart his corpse.
Grigor moves into Ina’s old cabin and forages for useful plants. Ivan’s men dismantle the church and use the stone to build a well in the center of town. Grigor knows he should be happy at these changes, but he misses the community and feeling of purpose that the church provided. When Grigor visits Ina with some canniba, he is surprised to find that Ina appears much younger: her face free of wrinkles, her hair changed from grey to brown, and her breasts heavy with milk. Ina tells Grigor that she is a mother now: “I finally have a babe of my own” (301). Although neither Grigor nor the rest of the Lapvonians practice or believe in religion anymore, Grigor recognizes Ina as sacred. Ina takes his hands and tells him to open his heart to God. He feels the divine enter his body and then feels his heart stop. Ina tells him that if he doesn’t let God into his heart, he’ll die, and Grigor surrenders to her: His heart resumes its normal rhythm, and she invites him to see the baby.
After Ina leaves the room, Marek sneaks in and peeks at the baby, which is small and unblemished. He calls out for Agata, but she is hidden beneath piles of tansy. When he removes the tansy, he realizes that she is long dead. Marek takes the baby and hides it in his jacket, thinking that if it really is the savior, he could pray to turn back time. He carries the baby up to the cliffside where Jacob died and sees Jacob’s bones, left there by Jude. He feels the baby is valuable and thinks how easy it would be to throw it. As he prepares to kill his baby brother, Marek tells the child not to worry: He will be happier in heaven.
Parts 4-5 Analysis
The Dichotomy Between Wealth and Poverty continues to loom large in the final sections of Lapvona, manifesting partly in the pressures of social status. Both Villiam and Father Barnabas grow increasingly paranoid about how others will perceive them. Their life of pointless amusement has ended, and now both feel compelled to perform roles that are unnatural to them. Villiam needs to be more somber and serious, as befitting the father of a holy child, and Father Barnabas fears his ignorance and irreligiousness will be discovered when pilgrims come to see the Christ Child. Father Barnabas’s worries and night terrors even lead him to contemplate his life choices. At first, he wonders if he is being compelled to give into evil; “Perhaps that was what his vision of the cavalry was meant to tell him: ‘Kill. Be a hunter. Join us’” (270). Ultimately, he wonders if he would have been happier in a simpler life, remembering the girls he kissed before he became a priest and thinking that he might have found genuine pleasure with one of them. Like many of the novel’s characters, Villiam and Father Barnabas are enmeshed in societal roles, but unlike figures like Agata or Luka, they had the power to choose those roles for themselves. This ambition and greed ultimately leads to their deaths.
During the Christmas meals, two families from the village see the truth of life at the manor. The first family is made uncomfortable during the meal and then has to help put out a fire Villiam carelessly starts. The second family, headed by Grigor, witnesses Villiam’s profane and chaotic tendencies. However, neither family chooses to reveal their newfound knowledge to the rest of Lapvona, instead extolling the finery of the house and reiterating their gratitude for the invitation. See themselves as unable to enact real change, they instead reinforce the status quo, presumably hoping to advance themselves by currying favor with the manor.
The novel makes clear that this is not the only choice available. Grigor has long been intrigued by the characters who have fashioned lives for themselves outside of society, such as Ina and Jude, and he attempts to learn from their alternative ways of being. By the end of the novel, he has begun to gather the plants Ina uses for medicines: “His heart felt cool and calm as he picked the herbs, as though even just the discovery of them had healing properties” (241). Grigor consequently finds happiness in a life connected principally to nature rather than society. Grigor tries to share this revelation with his family, telling them that whether they work or do not work has little impact on their success or happiness: “He couldn’t explain when he’d heard it, or from whom, but he’d heard it in his heart, without words, a deep knowing, and nothing could hurt him or frighten him now” (240). Free from the constraints of society, Grigor can make his own meaning and choose his own path.
Although Ina started off as the character who was most outside of society, she uses the horse eyes to reintegrate, gaining employment at the manor as Agata’s nurse. However, her participation in society looks much different than it did earlier in her life. At the nunnery she had no autonomy, simply completing the tasks she was assigned no matter how menial or degrading they were. As a wet nurse, she was an outsider who didn’t really belong to a family of her own. While taking care of the Christ Child, however, Ina undergoes a miraculous transformation: “The old woman looked younger than she used to. The comfort of the manor had done her good. Her hair was now thick and brown, hidden under a white veil and swept cleanly away from her forehead, which was pale and smooth” (297). This change indicates that Ina has become a true mother. She is no longer outside of societal structures; she has used her wiles and magic to forge a place of empowerment within the structures meant to disadvantage her.
The ending of Lapvona underscores that the lack of love in Marek’s life has doomed him. Marek can’t even understand the feeling of love: When he sees the “Christ Child” for the first time, “Marek felt his heart drop. Having never known love before, he couldn’t recognize the feeling. Something was terribly wrong, he felt” (298). Because no adult has shown him genuine love, he mistakes it for fear. This fear causes him to abduct the baby, his half-sibling, with the intention of killing it. Because Marek believes in Suffering As Salvation, he genuinely thinks the baby will be better off once it is dead. Nevertheless, he ends the novel just as he began it—poised to murder someone on the clifftop—making his desire to turn back time ironic. Despite the change in station, nothing significant has changed for Marek over the course of a year.
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By Ottessa Moshfegh
