The Surrogate Mother: 12 Analytical Essay Prompts

These 12 prompts focus on the novel’s central puzzles: shifting perspectives, manufactured evidence, and the fragility of trust. Each includes a defensible thesis direction and specific chapter/scene evidence from the outline. Use the main book page, questions and answers, and theme overviews as starting points for research.

1. Abby’s Transformation from Victim to Investigator

Why it matters: Abby begins as a trusting professional and ends as a woman who must reconstruct her own reality. Tracing her change reveals the novel’s commentary on self-reliance.

Sample thesis direction: Abby’s evolution from passive recipient of others’ decisions to active detective of her own life shows that survival requires abandoning the luxury of trust.

Evidence leads:

Prologue: Abby’s memory gap – she cannot say she is innocent.
Chapter 24: She stops taking sleeping pills to stay alert.
Chapter 32: She confronts Chelsea (Taylor Reynolds) on the street, a decisive investigative act.
Chapter 35: She visits Louise Johnson alone, disguising herself as Monica’s boss.
Chapter 40: She frees herself by cutting duct tape on a sharp radiator edge.

2. Sam’s Complicity: Naivety or Willful Blindness?

Why it matters: Sam’s behavior swings from reluctant partner to defender to possible conspirator. Is he a victim of Monica’s manipulation or a willing participant?

Sample thesis direction: Sam’s repeated failures to verify Monica’s claims, combined with his preferential treatment of Monica over Abby, suggest he unconsciously enabled the conspiracy long before the climax.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 5: Sam lists five objections to surrogacy yet agrees to meet Monica.
Chapter 14: Sam drinks too much and sits close to Monica at dinner.
Chapter 21: Sam has a secret lunch with Monica; later he does not correct Dr. Wong’s assumption that he is Monica’s husband.
Chapter 27: Sam flushes the “meth” without testing it, accepting Abby’s guilt.
Chapter 39: Sam returns to the apartment to reconcile with Abby, not to investigate.

3. Monica’s Strategy: How Small Lies Build a Frame

Why it matters: Monica’s deception relies on incremental contradictions that Abby notices but dismisses. Tracing these “micro-lies” shows how gaslighting works over time.

Sample thesis direction: Monica’s success depends not on one big lie but on a series of small, deniable contradictions—about her hometown, her taste in movies, her phone number—that erode Abby’s confidence in her own memory.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 9: Monica says she is from Indiana but is a devoted Red Sox fan.
Chapter 11: Monica calls Tarantino “so violent” but later quotes Pulp Fiction with Sam.
Chapter 24: Chelsea’s phone number is disconnected immediately after Abby tries to call.
Chapter 28: Gertie cannot confirm Monica’s face; Abby’s hope is dashed.
Chapter 34: Cynthia and Ellie reveal Monica’s real family is in New York City, not Indiana.

4. The Role of Gertie: Mother, Accomplice, and Reveal

Why it matters: Gertie’s late reveal as Monica’s mother reframes the entire plot. Her earlier friendliness becomes a weapon.

Sample thesis direction: Gertie’s dual role as Abby’s confidante and Monica’s mother allows the conspiracy to operate inside Abby’s most private spaces—her office and her home—making the betrayal both personal and professional.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 23: Gertie jokes about being pushed down the stairs; Abby connects it to Monica.
Chapter 28: Gertie comforts Abby and says “It will work out” – a double meaning.
Chapter 37: Gertie admits she drugged Abby’s orange juice and calls Monica “Mom.”
Chapter 38: Gertie hides in the closet, obeying Monica’s orders.
Chapter 40: Gertie is accidentally shot by Monica, revealing the family’s violent end.

5. Causality: The Chain of Mistakes That Leads to Denise’s Murder

Why it matters: The murder is the novel’s central crime, but it results from a series of decisions Abby makes—some forced, some voluntary.

Sample thesis direction: Denise’s death is the inevitable outcome of Abby’s attempts to keep her surrogacy secret at work, which isolates her from allies and gives Monica control over her professional life.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 2: Abby hides the surrogacy from her boss and coworkers.
Chapter 18: Monica covers for Abby’s mistakes, gaining Denise’s favor.
Chapter 21: The surrogacy is exposed in HR, making Abby a target.
Chapter 25: Denise fires Abby over the false-positive drug test.
Chapter 29: Denise calls Abby to reveal the Adderall evidence, then is killed.

6. The Blanket as Symbol: Monica’s Genetic Legacy

Why it matters: The epilogue’s blanket scene ends the novel on an ambiguous note. The blanket represents the inescapable bond between David and his birth mother.

Sample thesis direction: The blanket, carrying Monica’s scent and childhood memories, functions as a symbol of genetic inheritance that no legal contract or distance can erase.

Evidence leads:

Epilogue: Louise Johnson brings Monica’s baby blanket to Abby.
Abby plans to discard it, but David cries until he gets it.
David buries his face in the blanket, inhaling “the scent of Monica’s perfume.”
Earlier, Monica insisted on keeping the pregnancy test as a keepsake (Chapter 10).
The blanket is the only object Monica owned that survives into David’s life.

7. Contrasting Baby Showers: The Opening and the Collapse

Why it matters: The novel opens with a baby shower for Abby, then quickly reveals she is not pregnant. This structural contrast highlights the gap between appearance and reality.

Sample thesis direction: The two baby showers—the false one in Chapter 2 and the imagined one Abby never gets—frame the novel as a study in deferred hope and performative motherhood.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 1: Abby reveals she is not pregnant after the shower planning.
Chapter 2: The shower proceeds with gifts and a “Mommy Fuel” mug, later a source of grief.
Chapter 4: Abby returns to work and sees the mug; Monica removes it.
Chapter 10: Monica announces the pregnancy; Abby feels no joy, only dread.
Epilogue: David’s first birthday is described, but it is Abby’s motherhood, not a party.

8. Foreshadowing Through Minor Characters: Shelley and Abby’s Mother

Why it matters: Both Shelley and Abby’s mother warn her, but their warnings are dismissed. Their accuracy retroactively highlights Abby’s willful blindness.

Sample thesis direction: Shelley and Mother function as Cassandra figures whose accurate predictions about Sam and Monica are ignored because Abby values hope over evidence.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 7: Shelley warns that Monica may develop feelings for Sam and that she eavesdrops.
Chapter 13: Mother warns, “you can’t trust men,” specifically Sam with a young woman.
Chapter 14: Mother recounts Sam’s disastrous first meeting, hinting at his social incompetence.
Chapter 31: Mother insists Abby is innocent and suggests she lawyer up.
Chapter 35: Abby realizes Shelley was right; she feels foolish.

9. The False Drug Test: Gaslighting as a Narrative Device

Why it matters: The positive meth test is the turning point where Abby loses her job and her husband’s trust. It is the linchpin of Monica’s frame.

Sample thesis direction: The false drug test weaponizes Abby’s own insomnia and exhaustion against her, proving that gaslighting is most effective when the victim’s mental state is already fragile.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 24: Abby stops sleeping pills to prepare for drug screens.
Chapter 25: Denise fires Abby after the positive test; Abby insists it is false.
Chapter 26: Sam finds white crystals in Abby’s drawer and flushes them.
Chapter 27: Monica gives Abby an ultimatum: rehab or she ends the adoption.
Chapter 29: Denise reveals she found Adderall in Monica’s cubicle, proving tampering.

10. The Structure of Unreliable Memory: Prologue to Epilogue

Why it matters: The novel begins with Abby’s arrest and ends with a living Monica. The framing creates a puzzle about what Abby remembers.

Sample thesis direction: By opening with Abby’s claim “I don’t know if I did it” and closing with a vegetative Monica, the novel questions whether memory is ever a reliable path to truth.

Evidence leads:

Prologue: Abby says, “I don’t know…” when the lawyer asks if she killed Denise.
Chapter 26: Abby wonders if she has a blackout condition.
Chapter 38: Monica forges a suicide confession, blurring what is real.
Chapter 41: Sam says Monica “died” but then recants; Abby does not question it.
Epilogue: Monica is alive but cannot speak; Abby’s knowledge is incomplete.

11. The Letter Opener: Symbol of Betrayal and False Evidence

Why it matters: The engraved letter opener is the murder weapon that ties Abby to Denise’s death. It literalizes how objects can be used to corrupt truth.

Sample thesis direction: The letter opener, a personal gift from Abby’s office, represents the inversion of Abby’s professional identity into evidence of violence, showing how Monica weaponizes intimacy.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 29: Detective Sweeney shows Abby the blood-soaked letter opener with her name.
Abby remembers the letter opener was on her desk; she does not know how it got to Denise’s office.
Chapter 32: Frisch says the circumstantial case hinges on the letter opener.
The letter opener was a gift from a client—symbolizing Abby’s career success.
Monica had access to Abby’s office, so she could have taken it.

12. The Ambiguous Ending: Is Monica’s Legacy Truly Over?

Why it matters: The epilogue refuses to resolve Monica’s influence. David’s attachment to the blanket suggests Monica’s presence will persist.

Sample thesis direction: The ending resists closure by leaving Monica alive and David bonded to her scent, arguing that the psychological consequences of manipulation outlast the manipulator.

Evidence leads:

Epilogue: Monica is in a permanent vegetative state; Abby and Sam raise David.
Louise Johnson gives Abby the blanket; Abby intends to discard it.
David becomes inconsolable without the blanket and clings to it.
The final image: David “burying his face” in the blanket, smelling Monica.
The novel ends without confirming whether Monica will ever die or speak again.