48 pages • 1 hour read
Nicholas SparksThe Choice
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Challenges of Romantic Relationships
The novel explores the complexities of love, depicting both the joyous and challenging aspects of romantic relationships. It does this in two main ways—first, by contrasting Gabby’s faltering relationship with Kevin with the intense and passionate relationship she discovers with Travis.
Gabby’s relationship with Kevin, her long-term boyfriend of many years, has become stale and distant by the time the novel begins. She feels this disconnect, but at the same time, her guilt and insecurities outweigh her ability to trust her feelings. She wonders why Kevin hasn’t proposed but does not succeed in getting an answer from him. Though she values loyalty and her family’s expectations for her to remain with Kevin, her feelings are tested when she meets and eventually falls for Travis.
Gabby’s guilt about her relationship with Kevin follows her throughout most of Part 1. Even as she develops a closer bond with Travis, she is afraid to break things off with Kevin. At this point, she is more afraid of losing the vision she had of her future with Kevin than she is of losing the relationship itself. As her hopes of marrying Kevin slip away, she is confronted with the uncertainty of her present situation. Finally, she chooses to embrace that uncertainty by beginning a relationship with Travis. Travis makes Gabby feel incredibly beautiful, funny, intelligent, and, most of all, heard. These are attributes she finds lacking in her relationship with Kevin.
The second way the novel highlights this theme is through the decision Travis must make to take Gabby off life support in Part 2. Whereas Gabby faces challenges with their relationship at the beginning of the novel, Travis faces them in the end. This shows that romantic relationships are not just about passion and courtship; once people develop a deep love that includes a family, the challenges they face become more complex and, as they do here, have even greater repercussions. Stephanie voices this belief as she consults with Travis about his decision:
[T]he two of you, there’s something uncanny about the way you two are with each other. I mean everything—the way you look at each other, the way she relaxes when you put your hand on her back, the way you both seem to know what the other is always thinking, it’s always struck me as extraordinary (258).
She even notes that she puts off marriage because she does not think she can find a love as perfect as theirs. This puts extra pressure on Travis to make the right decision, and it is impossible for him to objectively know what that is.
Ultimately, the novel has a traditional happy ending, implying that the challenges Gabby and Travis face can be overcome. However, the Epilogue hints that Travis, Gabby, and their children will have to adjust to this new stage in their lives and that new challenges will always lie ahead.
Coincidence Versus Destiny
A central theme in the novel is the difficulty of distinguishing coincidence from destiny. This is a common theme in traditional heteronormative romance novels, as plots are often structured by a series of unlikely or chance incidents that repeatedly bring a man and woman together. Because the couple must often fight against the odds or against forces that try to keep them apart, these plots reinforce the idea that the love between the protagonists is meant to be.
The Choice highlights this theme in both traditional and unique ways. It seems to be a mere chance that Gabby Holland and Travis Parker end up as neighbors. At first, Gabby wants nothing to do with Travis, but when she is forced into repeated encounters with him, she finds herself drawn to him. In particular, the plot device of Molly’s pregnancy and Travis’s occupation as a veterinarian facilitate meaningful interactions between the couple. Spending more time with him, Gabby begins to understand his personality and redeeming qualities that were absent during their early encounters. Whereas some stories advocate for love at first sight, romances that favor destiny often begin from the premise that first impressions can be wrong, especially if they are negative. Repeated encounters with Travis give Gabby a chance to test her relationship with Kevin. This relationship ultimately ends, proving, in the story’s logic, that Gabby and Travis were destined to be together.
Gabby’s career change also highlights the theme of coincidence versus destiny. After an interaction gone awry with one of the pediatrics practice owners, she ends up working in the emergency room at the local hospital—the same hospital where, 10 years later, she becomes an intensive care patient. There, the doctors, nurses, and staff know Gabby and Travis very well and encourage them through the difficult steps of their relationship and medical ordeal.
Travis struggles with whether to see the tragedy of Gabby’s car accident and coma as fate or chance, and this is how the novel explores the theme in a unique way. Often, destiny and fate are only positive forces in a romance novel. They represent love’s ability to overcome negative outside forces and bring about happiness for the couple. In The Choice, the accident proves that if destiny exists, it can also be cruel. Believing Gabby’s accident is fate makes Travis feel powerless and makes their life together seem futile, just as it would if he chose to believe the accident was merely bad luck. These feelings complicate his decision of whether to take Gabby off life support because he doubts his ability to control the events’ outcome. Travis understands that life is a “gamble” and that in his youth, he survived accidents that should have had much more serious consequences. Gabby’s awakening does not settle the issue of coincidence versus destiny, but it does prove that, whether guided by fate or chance, situations are always subject to change.
Choices and Their Consequences
The title of the novel exemplifies the central theme of choices. These choices increase in complexity and have more dire consequences as the novel progresses. In Part 1, the choices Gabby faces have serious consequences for her life’s trajectory. Gabby is torn between her current boyfriend, Kevin, whom she’s been with for many years but doesn’t have a certain future with, and her neighbor Travis, for whom she has spontaneous, passionate, and intense feelings. As she falls deeper in love with Travis, her confusion and grief about choices grow. On the one hand, if she leaves Kevin, she may never know if their relationship would have worked out, and in confessing her affair with Travis, she could lose him forever. On the other hand, she hardly knows Travis; they have spent a few very intense days together, and although they have confessed their undying love for one another, his past dating history leads her to think she is just another woman in his long dating history. A series of small choices, such as deciding whether to go on the boat trip with Travis and picking out a bathing suit, precede the bigger choice of choosing to step out of her comfort zone and into an unknown relationship even though her feelings are not fully resolved. In the end, Gabby chooses to follow her emotions. The consequences of her choice lead her to a happy and fulfilling life with Travis, with many adventures and much love, including the growth of their family with their two daughters.
In Part 2, Travis is faced with grave choices. Whereas the tone of Part 1 is exciting and joyous, Part 2’s tone is somber. Travis is developed as a contemplative character who considers even small decisions carefully despite having been carefree in his youth. Now, he faces a choice that could end his spouse’s life, perhaps the most serious of all consequences. The choice is not easy and has many factors. First, he blames himself for the accident that caused him and his wife to go to the hospital, which led to her remaining in a coma for three months. Travis notes that if he had not been late from the clinic the evening of the accident, if they had gone out to eat as they usually did, if he had brought the umbrella, and if he had accepted the ride from his friend, then he would not have been caught in the rain, his feet would have never gotten wet, and therefore they would have never began to itch. If he had slowed down as Gabby had requested while speeding home and had not untied his shoe to scratch his foot, he would’ve seen the light and would’ve hit the brakes in time to save them from the tragic accident. This series of small decisions that seemed meaningless at the time mirrors the minor (though more deliberate) decisions Gabby made leading up to their relationship. Now, Travis feels responsible for ending the happy life that his and Gabby’s earlier choices created.
Like Gabby, Travis has the choice between choosing logic or emotion. All the statistics and medical facts point to the improbability of Gabby waking up after being in a coma for three months. Travis also has a legal document signed by Gabby that expresses her wishes to be taken off life support. In the end, he goes with his emotions, which will not let him choose to end Gabby’s life. The choice to continue her life support could be seen as selfish because he refuses to respect her wishes, but in the end, his choice has positive consequences because Gabby wakes up from the coma.
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