54 pages • 1 hour read
The Love of My Afterlife
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Symbols & Motifs
Evermore
Merritt offers Delphie the chance to return to Earth because she wants Delphie to live a full and meaningful life, and Evermore is presented as the exact opposite of that goal. Thus, the specter of Evermore becomes a symbol of Delphie’s unlived life and wasted opportunities. Only when Delphie arrives in Evermore does she realize how much of her life has been wasted, and it is ironic that she must die in order to understand this. Evermore represents Delphie’s failure to fully live her life. During her 10-day second chance on Earth, Delphie is filled with uncertainty about what Evermore will actually hold for her if she is destined to return there, and she also wonders what her afterlife might be like if she is banned from Evermore. Yet the more time she spends on Earth and begins to enjoy her life, the more Delphie sees Evermore as the end of all of her happiness. Thus, while her visit to Evermore is the catalyst for her change, Delphie believes that Evermore symbolizes the opposite of a life well lived.
Drawing
Throughout her childhood, Delphie always loved drawing and felt most comfortable when she was creating art. However, after her high school bully shared her art without her permission and then ridiculed her for it, Delphie gave up her pursuit of art entirely. In this way, drawing and art come to represent all that Delphie has felt compelled to give up due to her past experiences with bullying, and her lack of passion shows just how much her life has changed since she stopped doing something meaningful for herself. After high school, Delphie continues to order art supplies, but she always makes excuses not to use them. At one point in the novel, she considers what her life would have been like if she hadn’t given up art, but she finds the question too painful to answer.
However, when she is led to a life-drawing class in pursuit of Jonah, she begins to draw again and notices how natural it feels to her. As Delphie begins to regain her sense of self toward the end of the novel, she takes up drawing again, and this regained interest symbolizes her recovery of a life worth living. She uses her art to connect with others and applies what she has learned to her new drawings. Delphie’s relationship to her artistic talents mirrors Cooper’s relationship to his writing, as both passions once made the characters happy, but grief and hurt have since compelled them to give up on their respective interests. Yet Delphie’s experience with drawing goes hand in hand with her transformation throughout the novel, as she gradually regains pieces of her old self and becomes a new person.
Romance Novels
The Love of My Afterlife fits neatly into the genre of contemporary romance, but the narrative’s recurring references to romance novels—both explicit and implicit—become something of a motif within this novel whose plot relies so heavily on the tropes and conventions of the genre. Most notably, Merritt is obsessed with romance novels and shows Delphie her collection of “second-chance” and “enemies-to-lovers” romances as soon as the protagonist arrives in Evermore. This moment serves as foreshadowing of Merritt’s romance-inspired efforts to engineer the appearance of such tropes in Delphie’s life. For Merritt, romance novels symbolize how life should work, and her interest in them highlights her overall optimism. Though Delphie is skeptical, romance novels are exactly what Merritt uses to convince her to return to Earth and search for Jonah, although Merritt’s true plan is to get Delphie to actually live her life rather than wasting it.
While Delphie is on Earth, Merritt manipulates the protagonist’s experiences and causes them to resemble the common plot patterns of a romance novel, especially once she realizes Delphie and Cooper are falling in love with one another. Merritt uses many common tropes—such as making the pair get stuck in the rain and share the same bed, and all of her efforts are designed to force Cooper and Delphie to become closer to one another. Yet all of Merritt’s actions have an ulterior motive: to compel Delphie to live her life fully and authentically. When Aled explicitly compares Delphie and Cooper’s romance to that of a novel, Delphie begins to suspect that Merritt has been influencing her life. As she learns more about romance novels, Delphie sees how the events that have been happening around her must have been Merritt’s doing. Though she is initially skeptical about Merritt’s obsession with romance, Delphie begins to see that Merritt is giving her the push she needs to find her own “happily ever after” conclusion. In this way, the tropes and conventions of romance novels represent Merritt’s desire for Delphie’s life to work out for the best, and to this end, she tries all the tricks she can think of to convince Delphie that she must take risks in order to regain her happiness.
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