Chapter 17 Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes
⚠️ 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
The chapter opens with the narrator and Matthew's shared vow that their marriage would be different from their parents'. In long conversations—lying in bed, making pronouncements toward the ceiling—they enumerated specific commitments: they would never be too busy for each other, never nurse resentments, and never abandon one another. The narrator frames this vow against her mother's current action of moving her father into an assisted living facility as his Parkinson's disease worsens. Though the facility is luxurious by Tampa standards—with a soft-serve machine dispensing different flavors daily, china dinnerware, and an extensive DVD library—the narrator is disappointed. She suspects her mother of exacting revenge on her father for reasons unknown to her, though she acknowledges it isn't her place to judge.
The couple's happiness leads them to want a child, which the narrator describes as a kind of greed—not for money or recognition, but for love. She reflects that before meeting Matthew she never envisioned such happiness, and now having a baby feels like a dare: could she possibly be happier? She also privately wonders whether a child might give her the meaning her career hasn't provided. She doesn't admit this to her mother, who would be disappointed to hear it—her mother never expected old-fashioned things like marriage and family from her daughter and would have wanted her to pursue a less conventional life.
The narrator becomes pregnant and tells their families, then miscarries at eleven weeks. The doctor assures her miscarriages are common this early. She becomes pregnant again, and this time they wait to share the news—but she miscarries again. After a third miscarriage, she thinks this can't be normal and blames herself. The doctor runs tests and finds a genetic cause involving chromosomal abnormalities.
She tells her mother about the diagnosis. The doctor suggests in vitro fertilization as a way to avoid the problem. The chapter notes that Lee—presumably someone in their circle—conceived her youngest child at thirty-eight through IVF. The procedure is expensive but within their means.
Their embryos are screened for gene disorders and chromosomal imbalances, with unhealthy ones set aside. The couple is offered the option of choosing their child's sex, but the narrator declines, feeling it isn't right.
The narrator describes speaking to the embryo—a collection of cells deciding whether to implant—trying to make a deal with it, communicating telepathically that they'll have a great life, pleading with it to stay. After an agonizing two weeks, the doctor calls to confirm the pregnancy has taken. But the narrator can't feel relief yet, knowing she could miscarry again. Time passes excruciatingly slowly—a month, then another, then another. She pictures time as an old man with long silver hair like a wizard's, on his hands and knees.
On the ultrasound, she sees the baby's outline. She reflects on whether love is so flimsy, whether she's so easily suggestible—she hasn't met this person, only knows his shape and feels his movements, but already he is everything to her.
Key Events
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The narrator and Matthew vow their marriage will differ from their parents'
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The narrator's mother moves her father into an assisted living facility as his Parkinson's worsens
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The couple decides to have a baby, motivated by what the narrator calls a greed for love
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Three consecutive miscarriages occur, the first at eleven weeks
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Genetic testing reveals chromosomal abnormalities as the cause
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The couple pursues IVF with embryo screening
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The narrator declines the option to choose the child's sex
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The embryo implants and the pregnancy takes after a two-week wait
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An ultrasound reveals the baby's outline, and the narrator feels overwhelming anticipatory love
Character Development
The Narrator: This chapter deepens our understanding of the narrator's inner life. Her self-blame after repeated miscarriages reveals a tendency toward internalizing failure. Her decision to decline sex selection shows a moral compass around reproductive technology. Her private communication with the embryo—pleading with it to stay—reveals vulnerability and a desperate hope she can't fully articulate. Her reflection on the ultrasound—wondering whether love is flimsy or whether she's easily suggestible—shows self-awareness about the intensity of her feelings.
Matthew: Though less directly focalized in this chapter, Matthew is present as the narrator's partner in the marriage vows, the shared decision to have a child, and the IVF process. His role as co-vower and co-parent-to-be anchors the couple's joint project.
The Narrator's Mother: Her decision to move her father into assisted living is presented through the narrator's disappointed lens. The mother is characterized as pragmatic but possibly vengeful, though the narrator admits she doesn't know her mother's reasons. The mother's phone call about the genetic diagnosis shows concern, and her earlier expectation that her daughter pursue a non-conventional life reveals her progressive values.
The Narrator's Father: Present only through his Parkinson's diagnosis and relocation to assisted living, he functions as a symbol of decline and the caregiving burden that the narrator and Matthew have vowed to avoid in their own marriage.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Marriage as Deliberate Construction: The opening vow establishes the couple's marriage as a conscious project of differentiation from their parents' models. The specific commitments—never too busy, never nursing resentments, never abandoning each other—are framed against the mother's perceived abandonment of the father.
Greed for Love: The narrator explicitly frames her desire for a child as a form of greed—not for money or recognition, but for love. This reframes ambition and desire in emotional rather than material terms.
Genetic Inheritance and Medical Intervention: The chromosomal abnormalities that cause the miscarriages introduce the novel's concern with heredity and the body's genetic code. IVF and embryo screening represent the couple's attempt to intervene in biology, raising questions about what it means to select for health.
Ethics of Reproductive Choice: The narrator's refusal to choose her child's sex marks a boundary in her engagement with reproductive technology—she'll screen for health but won't select for preference.
Anticipatory Love: The narrator's communication with the embryo and her overwhelming response to the ultrasound explore the nature of parental love—whether it can exist before meeting the child, and whether it is flimsy or profound.
Time and Waiting: The excruciating slowness of time during the pregnancy—pictured as an old wizard-like man on his hands and knees—captures the anxiety of waiting for a pregnancy to hold.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter is pivotal for several reasons. It establishes the narrator's reproductive history—three miscarriages, a genetic diagnosis, and IVF—which will likely inform the novel's larger exploration of heredity and identity. The genetic screening of embryos connects to the novel's title and its questions about what makes someone American in biological and cultural terms. The chapter also deepens the narrator's relationship with her mother, showing both the daughter's judgment of her mother's caregiving decisions and the mother's progressive expectations for her daughter's life. Finally, the narrator's anticipatory love for the unborn child sets up the emotional stakes for whatever follows in the narrative.
Study Questions
1. Why does the narrator decline the option to choose her child's sex, and what does this reveal about her values?
The narrator declines because it doesn't seem right. This decision reveals a moral boundary in her engagement with reproductive technology: she's willing to screen embryos for genetic disorders and chromosomal imbalances—interventions aimed at health—but draws the line at selecting for a non-medical characteristic like sex. This suggests she distinguishes between preventing suffering and exercising preference, and that she wants to accept the child as it comes rather than shape it to her specifications.
2. How does the narrator's response to her mother's caregiving decision complicate our understanding of family obligation?
The narrator is disappointed by her mother's decision to move her father into assisted living, and she suspects revenge as a motive. Yet she also acknowledges it isn't her place to say what her mother should do. This tension reveals the gap between the narrator's idealized vow—that she and Matthew would never abandon each other—and the practical realities of caregiving for a spouse with a degenerative disease. The chapter complicates the notion of abandonment by showing that care decisions are rarely simple.
3. What does the narrator's greed for love reveal about her motivations for parenthood?
The narrator frames her desire for a child as a form of greed—not for money or recognition, but for love. She also privately hopes a child will give her the meaning her career hasn't. This dual motivation—expanding happiness and seeking purpose—reveals that her path to parenthood is partly about self-fulfillment. Her refusal to admit this to her mother, who expected her to pursue a less conventional life, shows the generational and ideological gap between them.
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