Sea of Tranquility

Emily St. John MandelFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 7: “Remittance/1918, 1990, 2008”

Part 7, Chapter 1 Summary

This chapter turns to Edwin in 1918. He lost a foot in the war (Passchendaele) and has symptoms that resemble post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He lives with his parents, and his brothers died in the Battle of the Somme. While he is aware that Gilbert is dead, Edwin sometimes talks to him in the garden. Edwin also mourns the loss of his beloved, another man who died in Belgium.

Gaspery visits Edwin in the garden and explains that he was the man disguised in priest’s clothing in Caiette and that what Edwin saw in the woods was real. Gaspery goes on to explain that Edwin heard a violinist in an airship terminal in 2195 due to a corruption of moments in time. Edwin is somewhat comforted that this event was not a hallucination and considers his future in a different light. Gaspery then says he must leave for an appointment in Ohio.

Part 7, Chapter 2 Summary

Gaspery considers running away in 1918, but he lets his device send him back to the Time Institute. There are uniformed men, as well as Olive’s publicist, Aretta, who turns out to be a time traveler. Zoey is being restrained. Gaspery apologizes to Zoey, explaining that he never meant to complete the investigation, but simply wanted to keep Edwin from his previous fate of dying in a psychiatric care facility.

Ephrem looks at the timeline and sees that Edwin dies of the flu during the pandemic in 1918, but not in a psychiatric care facility. Gaspery thinks his crime was worth it, though Ephrem argues that Edwin still dies, so the crime was pointless. When Ephrem asks for Gaspery’s last words, Gaspery says he doesn't regret his actions and asks Ephrem to take care of his cat. Ephrem agrees and sprays a drug in Gaspery’s face, causing him to collapse. The chapter ends in an em-dash.

Part 7, Chapter 3 Summary

This chapter is a sentence fragment that begins and ends with an em-dash. Gaspery feels Ephrem with him in the time travel machine.

Part 7, Chapter 4 Summary

This chapter begins with an em-dash and then the sound of gunshots. Gaspery realizes he is in an underpass with Ephrem. Ephrem takes Gaspery’s device, puts a gun in his hand, and disappears. The sprayed drug makes Gaspery sleepy. While moving in an out of consciousness, he sees the murderer run away, a dead man, and another man die in front of him. He thinks about Zoey’s comments on framing a time traveler for crimes so that someone pays the bill for their imprisonment.

Then, Gaspery sees Mirella and her sister in the overpass. He says Mirella’s name as the lights of the police flash over him.

Part 7, Chapter 5 Summary

In prison, Gaspery writes “No star burns forever” (229) on the wall of his cell. This is a reference to the president of China talking about the reason for colonizing space—that the sun will die. Gaspery dwells on his actions as a time traveler while imprisoned, but he does not regret saving Olive’s life. His cellmate, Hazelton, likes the inscription. In the evenings, Gaspery sits on the edge of his bed to look at the moon.

Part 7 Analysis

Part 7 circles back to Part 1 with Gaspery talking to Edwin. After the war, Edwin found it “difficult to be alive in the world” (218). Gaspery does not want Edwin to end up in a psychiatric care facility, so Gaspery reveals that what Edwin saw in the forest was an example of how “[m]oments in time can corrupt one another” (221). While Gaspery cannot cure Edwin’s PTSD (called “shell shock” in Edwin’s era, or shortly thereafter), he is able to convince Edwin that he did not hallucinate the airship terminal. Rather, it is Gaspery’s traveling through time that causes the file corruption. Gaspery’s intervention gives Edwin enough peace to remain in his familial home until he dies in the 1918 flu pandemic, rather than alone in a psychiatric hospital.

Edwin decides to trust Gaspery, despite his use of the priest costume and his accent. Gaspery’s accent is a motif throughout the novel, one that is a persistent clue to his nature as a time traveler. Edwin calls it an “unplaceable foreign accent” (219). The future is characterized as a “foreign” place, developing the theme of home. Home—the moon in the 2400s—is where Gaspery must go after comforting Edwin. Looking at his device, he realizes, “The only possible destination was home” (223).

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

8,800+ In-Depth Study Guides
4,700+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
Downloadable PDFs

However, the circle of Gaspery’s time-traveling life closes in Ohio. The Time Institute punishes his violation of their rules—warning Olive and Edwin of their futures—by framing him for a murder. In Part 2, Mirella knows Gaspery’s future because it occurred in her past. She saw him as a little girl, but he saw her as an adult before he saw her as a little girl. Part 7 replays the same moment, but from a different perspective—the reader gets Gaspery’s point of view instead of Mirella’s, which they saw in Part 2. Unlike the anomaly, this moment in Ohio could be classified as having the Rashomon effect, because Gaspery’s point of view clarifies the crime that Mirella does not understand. The Rashomon effect comes from the classic film Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa, which portrays the scene of a murder in several different ways.