46 pages • 1 hour read
Sabbath's Theater
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Part 2, Pages 352-451Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “To Be Or Not To Be”
Part 2, Pages 352-412 Summary
Sabbath arrives to find everything changed. He heads to the graveyard where his family is buried only to find a grocery store in its place. No one in the store knows of the cemetery, and he only finds it by following a Jewish funeral procession. Before the funeral begins, Sabbath finds the cemetery superintendent and they go to his family’s plot to see if there is any room left. There is not, as his aunt took the fourth and final plot two years prior. The superintendent informs Sabbath of a single and double plot nearby and goes to check their availability. While he is gone, Sabbath searches the cemetery for his grandparents.
When he finds his grandparents’ graves, he reminisces about his grandmother and how special she was to him. He thinks of how nice Morty was, teaching him to fish and protecting him from bullies. He returns to the main building and uses Michelle’s money to buy the single plot near his family. He makes all the arrangements and pays for a coffin, plants, memorial inscription, and a rabbi. He writes the inscription and seals it in an envelope, only to be opened when he dies. He then goes to see his new plot and looks over it with pride, imagining an inscription that will account for his many crimes and perversions.
Sabbath drives around town, working up the courage to die by suicide. He feels no connection to the changed town until he finds his older cousin Fish’s house. It is unchanged and the rundown familiarity sparks new feelings in him. He wonders who owns the house now and if he could buy it. He calls to see who is home but no one answers and a neighbor tells him that he needs to knock loudly for the old man to hear. Fish is still alive at 100 years old, and Sabbath finds him on the sofa. Sabbath remembers Fish’s wife, who died young from a tumor, his stamp-collecting son, Irv, and his daughter, Lois, whom he once had a crush on. He also remembers how Fish sold vegetables from a truck and would take Morty and Sabbath fishing.
Sabbath sits with Fish. After some coaxing, Fish remembers Sabbath’s parents and brother, though he does not remember Sabbath. Sabbath toys with the idea of moving in and helping. He wants Fish to remember him. As he looks around the house, Sabbath recognizes his mother’s credenza and, looking in it, finds a box with Morty’s casket flag and other belongings. He and Fish talk about death. While Sabbath wants to die, Fish does not. Sabbath comes to realize that there is no escaping death. Just as Fish begins to remember Sabbath, Sabbath convinces him to make dinner and leaves, sneaking out with the box of Morty’s belongings.
At the boardwalk, Sabbath opens the box and sifts through the many pictures and memorabilia. The process is immensely painful, and when he finds the flag at the bottom of the box, he goes down to the beach wrapped in it and cries for two hours. When he returns to the car, he finds a packet of letters that fell out of the box. These letters are the last Morty ever wrote. In them, he describes his life in the military and expresses his love for his family. Sabbath grieves, realizing that his brother would be 70 now, and reflecting on how short his life actually was.
Part 2, Pages 413-451 Summary
Sabbath drives back up to New England, still draped in the flag and wearing an American flag yarmulke he found in the box. He cannot bring himself to die by suicide now that he possesses Morty’s belongings. He wants to keep them safe in his studio. He remembers knowing everything about the planes his brother flew in and laments that the war did not end sooner. Sabbath also remembers Drenka’s death and her time in the hospital. He visited her late at night with under-the-radar permission from the nurses. Those nights, he sat with her, helped the nurses flip her, and called for more morphine when she needed it. Drenka died one night from a pulmonary embolus only a few hours after he left.
He remembers their final conversation. She told him how much it meant to her to have an American boyfriend who helped her learn and make life as an immigrant easier. She wished they’d spent more time together and taken trips. She wanted to see where he’d grown up. They also talked about when they’d urinated on each other in the Grotto. Drenka loved being urinated on and felt a new kind of unity with him when it happened. She said she loved and trusted him, but didn’t regret sleeping with other men. Her last words before she fell asleep were “I give my heart, I give my self, in my fucking” (429). Sabbath left after this, and though the nurses say she mumbled something in Croatian before she died, he considers these to be her last words.
Sabbath reaches his driveway and considers how Morty’s belongings give him a reason to stay alive. Finding a truck in the driveway, he gets out and looks through the window, shocked to see Roseanna with Christa. They are watching a show about gorillas and they pretend to be gorillas caring for one another before turning the lights out and pleasuring each other. Sabbath grows angry at their harmony and trust, hearing them recite the AA prayer together, and smashes the window before running away.
He returns to the cemetery and writes his will before walking up to Drenka’s grave. His will stipulates that the money he stole from Michelle is to be used to establish a scholarship for whatever graduating girl at his old school has the most sexual relations with male faculty members. He also designates his brother’s belongings to be buried with him. Sabbath reflects that death by suicide is funny, and then he urinates on Drenka’s grave. At first, the urine comes slowly, but soon Sabbath finds that he cannot stop, even when Matthew appears and confronts him. Matthew tells Sabbath that Drenka left a diary and that he and his father know everything that Sabbath and Drenka did. Sabbath wonders why she left such a record. With the help of a trainee, Matthew detains Sabbath and puts him in the back of his patrol car. Sabbath antagonizes Matthew, hoping he will murder him, but Matthew, fed up with his antics, kicks Sabbath out of the car and warns him that if he says anything about Drenka to anyone, he will hunt Sabbath down. He leaves Sabbath stranded on the side of the road. Alone, Sabbath realizes that he cannot die by suicide because everything he hates is tied to life.
Part 2, Pages 352-451 Analysis
In the final section of the novel, Sabbath contends with The Power of Loss and Grief. After Sabbath leaves Norman’s apartment in New York City and goes to the Jersey Shore to plan his death, he finds a box of Morty’s belongings in his cousin’s house. The box of belongings ignites new emotions, bringing together all his different experiences of loss, and grief crashes over him at this pivotal point where he is considering suicide. For the first time, he grasps the depth of his grief, likening it to an ocean: “He figured the only thing that could ever swallow him up like that again would have to be the ocean. […] We are immoderate because grief is immoderate, all the hundreds and thousands of kinds of grief” (407). The power of loss and grief are on display throughout the novel, but only at this moment does Sabbath truly express the profundity of his losses. He compares the grief he experiences to that of the ocean not only because of its volume but also because of its ability to submerge and drown him. Sabbath is shocked that such grief can all stem from such a small box filled with mundane items. His understanding of grief changes after this scene, however. His grief for his brother does not overwhelm him but rather gives him a new attachment to life and a new sense of purpose. He decides to embrace his grief instead of running from it, nurturing his connection with his beloved brother and protecting his memory.
As Sabbath processes his grief stemming from the loss of Morty, he also processes The Stress of Aging by reliving the loss of Drenka. Like Morty’s death, Drenka’s passing was shocking, although not as sudden, and Sabbath did receive closure, spending time with her on her death bed. Despite having these moments to say goodbye, her death is still difficult for Sabbath. Whereas Morty died tragically young, Drenka’s cancer brings him face to face with the tragedy of aging: “But lost now was the wet sauce, the pulsation, the contractions; lost to her now were the trips we never took, lost to her was all of it, her excesses, her willfulness, her wiliness, her recklessness, her amorousness, her elusiveness, her self-division, her self-abandon” (424). Drenka’s cancer and her limitations in her final months force Sabbath to watch her slowly fade away. His experience highlights that aging is a tragedy not only for those who pass away but for those who keep on living. He must watch as the woman he loves—the woman who helped him realize his fullest self—loses the parts of herself that he fell in love with. They can no longer have sex, and her personality and joy for life also slowly fade. Sabbath is already aware that old age will spare no one, but Drenka’s cancer forces him to confront this truth up close and at an accelerated pace.
Drenka and Sabbath are both people who view Desire as a Guiding Force, and they credit themselves for following their desires and not being limited by taboo, judgment, or shame. Even so, regrets emerge. While they both pride themselves on being in a “countermarriage,” Sabbath often wonders why they never left their spouses for each other. He believes they would be happier and better able to pursue their desires and passions with each other and others. Drenka refuses to leave Matija, but on her deathbed, she expresses regret for ever limiting herself in this way: “All I regret […] is that we couldn’t sleep together too many nights. To commingle with you” (428). The only way in which Drenka does not let desire influence her is with respect to her relationship with Sabbath. So much of their relationship is purely sexual, but she desires a more conventional relationship with him as well, one in which they can be partners in life as well as in bed. Desire leads them together, and through desire, they explore their fantasies and find a kindred spirit in one another. However, by ignoring the desire to cohabitate and be together permanently, Drenka feels as though she missed out on what their relationship could have been.
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