Big Swiss Chapter 20: The Weight of Permission
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
In Chapter 20, Greta attends a therapy session with Om while under the influence of a low dose of ketamine. She confesses that earlier that day she saw Flavia at a farm stand but did not speak to her. The session pivots when Om presses Greta to be emotionally honest about her past. Greta reveals that at age thirteen she encouraged her severely bipolar mother to commit suicide, and six months later her mother followed through. Greta describes the aftermath: returning from horse camp to find her mother dead, a thank‑you note that she flushed away, and a lifelong inability to grieve normally. Om connects her childhood survival pattern—suppressing desire and pleasure—to her current relationships. He also admits his own troubled adolescence, including bullying younger children. Om suggests Greta practice “reparenting” by naming her inner child Rebekah and treating her kindly. The session ends with a ten‑minute gong bath.
Key Events
- Greta tells Om she saw Flavia at a farm stand and cried afterward.
- Om gives Greta 50 mg of ketamine during the session.
- Greta admits she told her mother that suicide was “the only sane choice” and gave her blessing.
- Her mother died six months later while Greta was at horse camp.
- Greta reads her mother’s thank‑you note (with an e. e. cummings poem) and flushes it.
- Om relates that he bullied toddlers and sprayed cats with Windex at age thirteen.
- Om proposes that Greta name her inner child “Rebekah” and begin reparenting.
- Om reveals he is writing a campus novel, not a self‑help book.
- The chapter closes with a ten‑minute recording of a gong bath.
Character Development
Greta
This chapter is the first time Greta fully confesses her role in her mother’s death. The burden of having “permitted” the suicide has shaped her guilt, her fear of desire, and her pattern of hiding. She resists Om’s inner‑child framework but eventually agrees to name that part of herself Rebekah.
Om
Om departs from his usual clinical neutrality by sharing his own childhood cruelty. His disclosure (bullying toddlers, harming animals) is meant to normalize Greta’s “inner shithead,” but it also complicates his authority as a therapist. His novel project is named for the first time, raising questions about his use of the sessions.
Flavia and Luke
Neither appears in person, but their names anchor Greta’s guilt. Greta’s obsession with Flavia is now explicitly linked to her unresolved relationship with her mother.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Permission to Die / Suicide
The central act of the chapter is Greta granting her mother permission to die. The motif of permission recurs: Om gives Greta permission to feel anger; Greta asks permission to smoke; Om later says he wants Big Greta to be nice to Little Greta. The phrase “permission” bridges Greta’s childhood and her current therapy.
Writing and Transcription
Greta’s childhood correspondence with her mother (notes passed in the house) foreshadows her adult role as a transcriptionist. Om’s novel (a campus novel, not a self‑help book) blurs the line between therapy and exploitation. Greta’s own transcription of these sessions is now framed as homework.
The Inner Child (“Rebekah”)
Om introduces the idea of reparenting. Naming the inner child “Rebekah” gives Greta a way to separate her adult self from the wounded thirteen‑year‑old. The process is meant to heal not only herself but also the relationships she has damaged.
The Gong
The gong bath at the end provides a literal sound bath, mirroring Om’s earlier offer to “shake hands with your inner shithead.” It is a non‑verbal, sensory experience that Greta accepts in place of further talking.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 20 is the emotional and thematic core of Greta’s arc. It reveals the trauma that drives her secrecy, her guilt about Flavia, and her compulsive transcription work. The chapter also deepens Om’s character by exposing his own dark past and his ambiguous motives for recording sessions. The disclosure about his novel (a combo of The Secret History and Animal House) hints at a meta‑fictional layer: we, the readers, are essentially reading a transcript of a transcript. This chapter forces the reader to reconsider who is really in control of the narrative.
Study Questions and Answers
1. What did Greta do at age thirteen that still haunts her, and why does she feel responsible for her mother’s death?
She told her mother, who had bipolar disorder and repeatedly threatened suicide, that ending her life was a “viable option” and that she had her blessing. Six months later her mother did kill herself while Greta was away at horse camp. Greta feels that her words were equivalent to pulling the trigger, even though Om argues her mother was holding her hostage.
2. How does Om connect Greta’s childhood experience to her adult relationships and desires?
Om points out that Greta associates desire (the pleasure she felt with Diego at horse camp) with her mother’s death. She has re‑created the inhospitable conditions of her childhood—living in a gloomy house, barricading herself, staying in survival mode—as a way to force herself to confront the trauma. She also repeats attachment patterns; Om suggests the people in her life (Flavia, Sabine, her dog) may all be versions of her mother or of herself.
3. What is Om’s proposal for Greta’s inner child, and how does Greta react?
Om asks Greta to name her inner child (she first suggests “James,” then agrees to “Rebekah”) and to start being kind to that younger self instead of ignoring or shaming her. He calls the process “reparenting.” Greta is initially resistant—she says she isn’t ready to be a mom and jokes about him bullying Rebekah—but she ultimately does not refuse the exercise.