Free Will: A Central Theme in The Things We Never Say

In Elizabeth Strout’s The Things We Never Say, the question of free will pulses beneath every conversation, every secret, and every near miss. The novel does not offer a tidy answer. Instead, it stages a prolonged debate—through Carl Jung’s quotes, near-death experiences, and Artie Dam’s secret suicide planning—about whether human beings truly choose their paths or are driven by unconscious forces, loneliness, and the weight of the past. The thematic claim that emerges is both unsettling and tender: free will exists, but far less than we imagine, and its true exercise may be in how we respond to the things we never say.

The Suicide Plan: The Illusion of Control

Artie’s secret suicide planning dominates the opening chapters. For two months he methodically explores ways to end his life without leaving evidence—guns, drowning, pills—each option thwarted by practical or emotional obstacles. The outline reveals that Artie “concludes he is lonely enough to die, deciding to wait only until Rob’s new relationship is secure.” On the surface, this appears to be an act of will: a rational choice to end suffering. Yet the plan itself is riddled with contradictions. Artie cannot bring himself to shoot a gun, cannot face the shame of a discovered suicide, and ultimately cannot execute his own design. When he falls into the water—whether by accident or impulse—the near-drowning robs him of the clean control he craved. In the hospital he denies to Rob that he attempted suicide and promises to stay alive. The outline notes that Artie “feels a strange peace” after the rescue, as if the water itself made a decision for him. This event introduces the book’s central ambiguity: Did Artie choose to live, or was he saved from his own choice? The precognitive dream he reports—a vision of falling into water that comes true—further tilts the scales toward determinism, suggesting that even his unconscious knew what was coming.

Discovering Rob’s Paternity: The Limits of Agency

A second major blow to Artie’s sense of free will arrives with the revelation that Rob is not his biological son. The news comes through a letter from the deceased Reginald MacDonald; Artie had no hand in this truth, no way to shape it. He immediately faces a moral fork: tell Evie or stay silent. He chooses omission, and the evidence shows that “Artie decides not to tell his wife Evie, and begins lying by omission.” Yet even this choice feels less like free will than a reflexive survival instinct. Artie later tells Ken Moynihan, “Not sure when I will [tell her],” and the uncertainty hints that he is not fully in control of the decision. The outline describes how Artie “slowly comes to understand that what he had just learned was true”—the truth imposes itself. What Artie can exercise is the quality of his response: he affirms to Ken that his love for Rob is unchanged, even deepened. In this moment, free will becomes not the power to change facts but the power to reinterpret bonds. The novel suggests that while we cannot choose our history, we can choose how we hold it.

The Shoplifted Comb and Unconscious Drives

The most dramatic illustration of diminished free will occurs in chapter 4, when Artie, at age fifty-seven, shoplifts a comb for the first time in his life. The evidence states: “He’d had no intention of stealing it.” He simply stands in the drugstore, picks up the comb, removes the price tag, and walks out. The act is involuntary, almost automatic. Following the theft, memories of Reginald and Evie “begin to pop up like mushrooms,” and Artie realizes he has been living at a wrong angle. The comb becomes a symbol of unconscious compulsion—a small, meaningless object that unlocks a cascade of truths. Later, when Artie confronts Rick Roper for a homophobic slur, the outline notes that “Artie had felt no control over what was about to happen, it just happened.” He googles whether he has had a stroke. He tells Rob, “I am just a blob of unconsciousness.” Rob’s response—“We all are, Dad”—normalizes this loss of agency as a human condition. Yet Artie does not stop there. He reclaims a sliver of will by giving the pillowcase to Rhonda, by encouraging Danny Marino to teach Shakespeare, by calling Rob to discuss Carl Jung. The novel insists that even within the unconscious flow, small acts of deliberation remain possible.

Carl Jung and the Near-Death Experience

The Jungian framework pervades the novel. The epigraph quotes Jung on loneliness as the inability to communicate what matters—a condition that fuels Artie’s isolation. In chapter 4, Artie calls Rob specifically to ask about Jung’s view of free will. The evidence records Rob’s explanation of Jung’s 1944 near-death experience: Jung saw the Earth from afar and accurately predicted his doctor’s death. For Artie, this story is electrifying because it blurs the boundary between fate and choice. If Jung could foresee events, then perhaps the universe is not random. But Jung also said that “Where there’s a will there’s a way” is a delusion—a claim that undercuts Artie’s earlier planning. The novel uses Jung not to resolve the debate but to give it intellectual weight. Artie is not a philosopher; he is a history teacher grasping for language to describe his own disorientation. The conversations with Rob and Ken become the site where free will is both questioned and, paradoxically, exercised: Artie chooses to reach out, to confess, to ask for help.

The Laugh That Ends Suicide

The climax of Artie’s internal struggle arrives in chapter 7. Flossie, drunk, confesses an affair and then jokes about the new president “shaking things up.” The outline describes how “Artie laughs uncontrollably—a release of sorrow that marks the end of his suicidal thoughts.” This laughter is not a rational decision. It erupts from him, unbidden, a physical response to accumulated grief. Yet it is also a turning point: after this laugh, Artie stops planning his death. The outline explains that he “accepts that people hold vast, unknowable universes.” This acceptance is the closest the novel comes to defining free will: not the power to control events, but the capacity to embrace mystery and choose connection despite uncertainty. In the epilogue, Artie dies of a heart attack—not suicide. The final question from Danny Marino (“Did Artie kill himself?”) and Rob’s assurance that it was natural causes underscore that Artie’s choice to live, however fragile, held.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel resists a simple verdict. If free will is an illusion, why does Artie’s decision to stay alive matter? If it is real, why does so much of his life unfold without his consent—the paternity secret, the theft, the near-drowning? Strout’s answer seems to lie in a middle ground: we are shaped by forces beyond our control, but we retain the ability to respond with honesty, love, and presence. The symbols reinforce this tension. The stolen comb represents unconscious impulse, while the sailboat (given to Artie by Rob) represents chosen peace—Artie finds solace only on the water, a space where he is neither planning nor reacting. The letter from Reginald is a fixed fact, but Artie decides its emotional meaning. The confectionary sugar memory (referenced in the book’s list of symbols) hints at the persistence of childhood feelings that operate below will. Free will, in the end, is not a binary but a spectrum: a negotiation between the given and the chosen.

Study Questions

1. How does Artie’s suicide planning contradict the idea that he has no free will?
   Answer: Artie spends two months developing a detailed strategy, which suggests intentional decision-making. However, his inability to execute the plan and the accidental near-drowning reveal that will alone cannot guarantee outcome. The planning itself may be an unconscious performance of control rather than true agency.

2. What role does Carl Jung’s philosophy play in shaping the novel’s view of free will?
   Answer: Jung’s epigraph reframes loneliness as a failure of communication, linking isolation to hidden truths. His near-death experience and skepticism toward “Where there’s a will there’s a way” provide intellectual grounding for the idea that unconscious forces limit choice. Artie uses Jung’s ideas to understand his own lack of control.

3. Why is the shoplifting incident significant for Artie’s understanding of free will?
   Answer: The theft is spontaneous and unplanned, proving to Artie that he can act without conscious intention. It triggers memories that reveal a life lived at a false angle. The incident forces him to question whether his previous actions—including his marriage and parenting—were truly chosen or merely habitual.

4. How does the discovery of Rob’s paternity test the limits of free will?
   Answer: Artie had no control over Rob’s biological parentage; the truth is imposed externally. His subsequent choice to lie by omission is not fully free because it is driven by fear and loyalty. Yet he also chooses to affirm his love for Rob, demonstrating that while facts are fixed, emotional responses are not.

5. In what way does Artie’s final laugh represent a reconciliation with free will?
   Answer: The laugh is involuntary, suggesting a release of control. Yet it marks the end of his suicidal intention—a profound life choice that emerges from surrender rather than calculation. Artie’s acceptance of “vast, unknowable universes” implies that free will may reside in our capacity to embrace uncertainty and continue loving.