Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name

Throughout the novel Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name by Vendela Vida, the theme of abandonment is solidly established.  Chronologically through the book, it begins when Clarissa abandons her fiancée and the life they had together in the United States.  However, throughout the timeframe of Clarissa’s life, the abandonment, as far as the reader knows, begins when Clarissa’s mother leaves her stranded in a shopping mall at the age of fourteen.  Abandonment, in general, is a very prevalent topic throughout the novel.  Not only has abandonment been the framework for Clarissa’s life, it has become her security blanket as well.

          Olivia Iverton abandoned her daughter in a shopping mall and disappeared into thin air when Clarissa was fourteen.  Unfortunately, this was not the first time that Clarissa had chosen to vanish from someone’s life.  She also abandoned her first husband, Eero Valkeapaä and their life together in Lapland when Clarissa was just a baby.  All of Olivia’s life, once Clarissa was conceived, was focused towards running away from the memory of her rape.  She couldn’t come to terms with what had happened, but couldn’t stand the idea of people pitying her for it either.  She left Eero because he was trying too hard to take care of her.  She felt as if she was being treated as a victim, so she left to get away from her shame.  Running away didn’t fix Olivia’s life.  However, she desired a new start free from people who knew about her past.  Unfortunately, this only meant that she would later abandon Clarissa, the product of the rape. 

            It’s difficult to tell whether or not Olivia’s abandonment of Clarissa led her to, in turn, abandon so many people.  Potentially, Clarissa was using her mother’s abandonment as an excuse to leave a situation in which she wasn’t happy.  However, it is also possible that Clarissa found it easy to leave her mentally challenged younger brother and Pankaj behind in America because her mother had abandoned her so long before.  Yet, it was made clear that Clarissa and Pankaj’s relationship had long since burned out.  “The stagnation in our separate and joined lives prompted Pankaj to propose…Somewhere around the twenty-fourth floor, Pankaj got down on both knees.  I thought he had fallen.” (32)  It is possible that Clarissa saw Pankaj as an expendable portion of her life, and thus easy to leave behind.  Either way, Clarissa leaves Pankaj with nothing more than an unheard whisper in his ear before she races off to Lapland. 

            Clarissa’s younger brother, afflicted with Down’s Syndrome from birth, is nothing but a minor character within this story.  However, Jeremy is far more needy than most of the characters.  It’s unknown as to whether or not he felt the loss of his mother when Olivia disappeared.  Clarissa took care of Jeremy from a young age, where Olivia did not.  Other than Clarissa’s rage-fueled telephone call to Jeremy in his home, he hears nothing from her once she is gone.  Jeremy is, unfortunately, abandoned twice within the pages of this book.  Clarissa seems completely unconcerned by the idea of leaving her mentally challenged younger brother to fend for himself in a home.  Perhaps she felt liberated from her responsibilities once she no longer had to take care of him.  From a younger age, Clarissa was saddled with the responsibility of caring for her brother.  Once she is gone, however, it is as if her brother does not exist.  Clarissa marries, has her child, and begins a new life without looking back at her brother even once.  It is as if the angry phone call was her final goodbye to him.  It will, however, remain a mystery as to what Jeremy thinks about his own abandonment throughout his life.

          Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name is littered with abandonment and loneliness, due to the decisions made by Olivia and Clarissa.  Both characters decide to leave those closest to them in favor of starting a new life full of anonymity and peace.  They are, for the most part, unconcerned for those that were left in their wake.  Both characters are only concerned with running from their dark pasts and finding a way to live in ignorance of their shame.  In the novel Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson, the main character, for whom Clarissa Iverton was named, desires only to live alone in peace.  Strangely enough, this is the life that Olivia achieves in her lonely hut up in Lapland.  It seems as if Olivia and Clarissa Iverton, so similar and regretful, want nothing more than to be ignorant and happy, no matter what the cost.