Severance

The novel’s title is also one of its main themes. Ruifang, Zhigang, and Candace undergo a “severing” of their past after moving to America. This cleaving of relationships and culture leaves scars on all of them. Through their characters, the novel addresses the common trauma of first-generation immigrants who must leave behind their past to create their future.

Before moving to America, Candace enjoys a pleasant childhood in Fuzhou. She spends most of her days with her mother and they have a close relationship. When Ruifang and Zhigang move to America they must leave four-year-old Candace behind while they save up for her plane ticket. After their move they live in near-poverty and social isolation. Ruifang goes from a well-respected woman with a circle of close friends and family to a lonely stay-at-home wife who must take on menial jobs to pass the time and earn extra money. She endures racism and struggles to be taken seriously by her peers.

By the time six-year-old Candace arrives in America, both she and Ruifang are embittered by their experiences. In the volatile years that follow, Ruifang tries to mold Candace into a model American by denying her Chinese identity, commanding her to speak English and punishing her harshly for minor transgressions. Though her actions are motivated by a desire to protect Candace from the trauma of alienation, Ruifang stunts her daughter’s personal growth by hindering her exploration of her identity or the expression of her personality. She places her frustrated ambitions on Candace rather than letting her decide for herself what she wants to do. Ruifang soon topples from the position of beloved mother and becomes Candace’s “antagonist.” A chasm of understanding opens between them, and their relationship never recovers.

From her parents, Candace learns the art of “performing […] Americanness […] to shield over [her] Chinese inner [self]” (187). By the time they die, she is estranged from China but remains ill-at-ease in America. Losing her parents severs her connection to China with finality—though she sometimes longs to go back, her relationships with her extended family also suffered after the move. In a scene from her childhood, Candace recalls one of her uncles yelling at her father, accusing him of becoming a capitalist and abandoning his Chinese family. The move to America came at the cost of those familial ties, so Candace is left without a family in the wake of her parents’ deaths.

A series of losses punctuates Candace’s adult life. The connections she forms all end prematurely. The severing of her close relationships estranges her even from herself, as she has no one to model her values and behavior on. She is at the uncomfortable crossroads of two cultures, no more able to fit in with her extended family and the workers at the Phoenix Ltd. Plant than she is with the Art Girls at Spectra. As a result, she adopts a ghostly identity, trying to pass through her life as a disaffected observer and denying her desire to fit in somewhere.

But no matter how much she tries to pretend she “doesn’t need anything,” (37) Candace is deeply unhappy. She craves the basic human needs of connection, love, and self-knowledge. She tries to dull these cravings through work, sex, and dissociation, but they remain strong beneath her blasé exterior. Eventually, she must acknowledge them; in the novel’s final chapter, Candace admits that she is tired of searching “for something that will never settle [her]” (287).

Severance wraps on a tentatively hopeful note, but there is no happy ending in the traditional sense. The severed ties of Candace’s past can’t be mended. The trauma of the immigrant experience shapes her life long after the initial rifts occur. All she can do is try to avoid passing down that trauma to the next generation by creating a better life for herself and her child.

Although Severance satirizes life under capitalism, the narrative has an empathetic view of individual consumers, understanding that American consumer culture encourages making buying a part of identity. The novel acknowledges that meaningful objects have a place in life if they are not being used to fill emotional voids.

Candace’s narration is hyper-aware of products. Familiar brand names pepper the novel as she catalogs, with a near-obsessive level of detail, every buyable object in her vicinity. Her job at Spectra involves producing novel editions of the Bible marketed to hyper specific subsets of consumers. Candace’s job calls out the way that Americans are encouraged to express themselves by buying things that ostensibly reflect their personalities and values. Because of her childhood experiences, Candace is more susceptible than most to this marketing tactic.

Growing up, Candace watched her father give up his life to claw their family into the middle class. Material goods mattered to her parents because they were a way to quantify their hard-won success. Zhigang tried to convey the value of life in America to his family through fried chicken dinners, vacations, and fast car rides. Ruifang’s 12-step skincare routine, the packages she sent back to China, and their well-decorated house were all symbols she could hold up to prove to her family that her move was worth it. Zhigang and Ruifang tried to buy themselves the sense of acceptance that they were denied in their new country.

Having inherited her parents’ attitudes, Candace believes that the most important part of living in a city is participating in its rituals of commerce. Lacking a sense of and trapped between two cultures, neither of which truly feels like her own, she relates to herself and others through the things they own. When she engages in an affair with Stephen the attorney, she’s not drawn to his looks or personality but to “all his things […] the trappings […] of success” (56) which adorn his life. Because she craves that level of success, Stephen’s belongings stand in for the emotional and sexual attraction that is missing from their courtship.

Consumption is also tied to Candace’s memories. The taste of food and drink, the feeling of a luxurious hand cream or a loose-fitting dress—these sensations evoke scenes from her past, connections to her parents and her extended family in China. They remind her who she is and who she was. But none of it is enough. No matter how many times she repeats her mother’s skincare routine or how many plates of dumplings she eats, she is still alone and adrift.

Severance exposes the pitfalls of overconsumption, but does not outright condemn the practice of buying nonessential products. Several scenes in the novel indicate that attachment to objects is not necessarily foolish or greedy, but rather a part of human nature. Although Candace views her job in Bible production through a cynical eye, there is a moving scene when she finds a Spectra-produced Bible in the room of a fevered young girl. The message inscribed on the inside cover makes it clear that the Bible is important to the little girl, and it humanizes her even in her zombified state. Candace wears her mother’s old Contempo Casuals dresses and purchases Ruifang’s favorite skincare brands to feel close to her memory. The narrative recognizes that objects can become meaningful when values and experiences are projected onto them. This is only a problem if these objects are used to patch over something that is missing from life.

After the apocalypse, Candace finds herself in the strange situation of having more money than she has ever had before, yet being unable to use it. No longer able to define herself through a catalog of objects, she is eventually forced to reckon with all the experiences and emotions she has been suppressing. Her visions of her mother help her work through her complex trauma and arrive at a stronger self-concept.

Severance ends with Candace setting out to raise her baby alone. She escapes the Facility with nothing, leaving behind all the objects that were once important to her. Yet her understanding of herself is clearer than it has ever been. She acknowledges the pain she has been suppressing for her entire adult life and form a plan to prevent her daughter from having to feel that same pain. By having Candace’s greatest character growth occur once she has only the clothes on her back, the novel’s message is clear. Objects can be tools for self-expression, but they cannot be used to build the core of one’s identity—that is something that must come from within.