Analysis
Gabrielle Zevin's 2022 novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow follows the journey of two childhood friends, Sadie and Sam. Their deep connection forms during their early years as a result of their shared passion for video games. As they mature, they evolve into successful game developers—even before graduating college.
At first glance, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow appears to be a novel about video games. It delves into the complexities of the gaming industry during a period of significant growth and development and unfolds during a time when people were still just beginning to grasp the powerful and influential nature of video games as a form of entertainment.
Upon closer inspection, Zevin’s is a tale of life, love, and loss. The three primary characters—Sadie, Sam, and Marx—may resonate most with those who share their passion for creating and playing video games. However, their very human qualities, at once quite likable and desperately flawed, make them relatable to everyone. In their attempt to navigate the game called life, the trio strives to win and find hope, though they are not always successful.
Zevin chose gamers and game developers as main characters because she grew up immersed in technology as a child. In a 2022 interview with Wired, she reveals that her father is a “computer programmer” and that both of her parents "worked at IBM for their entire careers."
She insists that everyone is a gamer, even those who deny it, as social media can be considered a type of game. If you participate—as so many do—you are a gamer, which is why it is unfair to label all gamers as "less empathetic."
And I think I see gaming as having the possibility to be a profoundly empathetic experience. ...If you’re playing on a social media network—as in, using one—you are playing a game, it’s just a sort of dull game with no end. So I think that there just aren’t people that aren’t gamers. So the idea that the person who is a gamer is somebody who is less empathetic, less romantic, or less trying to seek human connection is sort of old fashioned or possibly just ignorant.
In a 2022 interview with Penguin Random House, Zevin discusses how she mirrored the characters to reflect her own image. Sadie, whom she considers "the character that is probably closest to herself," is an ambitious and determined woman working hard to achieve her goals. Sam, who shares her Jewish and Korean background, represents her own experiences and portrays the complexity and richness of a biracial identity.
"So much of Sam comes from my own experience. As a kid, everywhere I went, people were always sure that I was a foreigner. ...I wanted to write about bi-racial identity in a more nuanced way than I had seen, because I often see a bi-racial character being used as a stand-in for not truly writing about race, so people don’t understand that experience is particular in a way. ...much of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is enabling Sam to “see himself as more of a center of the world, and not just some funny-looking kid sitting on the periphery of it."
It is interesting how Zevin aligns the life paths of the main characters with the games they create. Ichigo, an adventure game featuring a child lost at sea searching for home, mirrors Sadie and Smith's quest for purpose.
Similarly, Both Sides , a game with two parallel worlds—one simple, one complicated—reflects both facets of their lives. On a personal level, they experience ordinary joys and sorrows like everyone else, while professionally, they become...
(This entire section contains 971 words.)
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"heroes," striving for success after success.
Pioneers helps Sadie and Sam deal with their grief after losing Marx and is intended to help them discover a reason to keep playing or moving forward in life. In the story, Marx takes on the role of an NPC programmed to recite a passage from the Iliad about Hector and his mourning widow.
In this context, Zevin introduces the symbol of NPCs, or non-playable characters, to illustrate that ordinary individuals do not need to be the heroes of their life stories to be significant. NPCs may seem irrelevant, but the game would not exist without them:
"There’s no game without the NPCs," you tell him. "There’s just some bullshit hero, wandering around with no one to talk to and nothing to do."
To capture the characters' inner thoughts and emotions about their unique experiences, Zevin employs a non-linear, omniscient narrator. This narrative style guides readers through the deeper significance behind her words. Indeed, the title itself has a deeper meaning, one that extends beyond a mere quote from Macbeth. Instead, the title serves as a metaphor for life, symbolizing the concept of "infinite rebirth."
"What is a game?" Marx said. "It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever."
Embracing the idea that life is like a video game, complete with levels and challenges, means that one must also embrace the notion that there is always an opportunity to succeed, even in the wake of the most crushing setbacks.
In a 2022 interview with Today, Zevin claims that the more one plays, the greater one’s chance of discovering the truth about themselves or becoming the best version of themselves.
"I think that's the message of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow as well: You keep going at something, over and over and over again, until you find the truth of that thing or the best version of that thing," Zevin continued. "Whether that thing is a book, or a book turning into a movie, or just yourself."