A Complicated Kindness Character Analysis

The Realistic Truth of A Complicated Kindness
Throughout the course of the novel A Complicated Kindness flashbacks from Nomi's life are frequently shown, one of which is the day her older sister, Tash left. What happened to Trudie and Ray, Nomi’s parents, however is a bit more ambiguous. At the end of Miriam Toews A Complicated Kindness, it is understood that Raymond “Ray” Nickel has committed suicide based on the facts that he was extremely unhappy, got rid of all obligations, and his own daughter believes so.
It is apparent that throughout the novel Ray is clearly unhappy and most likely depressed. He is a faithful, devoted member of the Mennonite community and loves his family just as much as his religion. This sadly becomes a big issue
Right off the bat on page 1, Nomi mentions that “the furniture keeps disappearing.” This continues as the story goes on. In one instance Nomi finds herself waking up on her couch in the home of Eldon and The Comb who bought the couch off of Ray during the middle of the night. “He was sitting on it in the front yard like at three or four in the morning with a suit and tie on like he was waiting for me or something,” the Comb tells Nomi on page 203. Before that on page 193 Nomi says, “I asked him why he was getting rid of the furniture and he said he liked empty spaces because you can imagine what might go in them someday.” All of this is later explained on page 239 in the final chapter of the book when Nomi is left with a note describing “how to deal with the sale of the house” as well as instructions on “how to change the oil in the car.” Ray has striped all the furniture in the house so it is ready to be sold and has left what’s left to Nomi so she can start her new
Early in the novel on page 4 when talking about Ray she says, “He tells me that life is filled with promise but I think he means the promise of an ending.” On the concluding pages of A Complicated Kindness Nomi finally voices the thoughts that have been foreshadowed and left to stir throughout the course of the book. What has happened to her parents? On page 239 Nomi states, “All my dad left with was his new suit, his dipping bird, and the bible he’d had since he was a kid.” She also ends up asking herself, “How did he leave? Walk? Hitchhike? How do you leave a town with no train, no bus, no car?” If Ray was really planning to start a new life it doesn’t make sense that he left with no means of transportation, clothes, money, food, water, or identification of any kind. While it is true that she would rather picture that her father had “gone to pick garbage off mountains,” she knows that it is more probable that he is, as she said on page 245, “also at the bottom of the Rat”
While the final chapter of A Complicated Kindness has an ambiguous ending it is these previously stated passages that reveal the picture that Raymond Nickel committed suicide. Maybe if Ray had been in a better state of mind when he left, taken something to start over with, and the story hadn't been told from his daughter's point of view, just perhaps his story about leaving to clean up garbage could have been more