The Pursuit of Happiness in A Visit from the Good Squad

While reading A Visit from the Goon Squad, I traced the words “happy” and “happiness.”  I found that “happiness” could never be objectively defined, and with each new perspective came a new definition of happiness.  Even for specific characters, as their perspectives changed over time, I found that “happiness” for them had as well.  For example, Sasha’s relationship to “happiness” changes as frequently as she herself does in the book.

In the opening scene of the novel, Sasha returns to her date, Alex, after having stolen a wallet in the bathroom.  Alex remarks that “[she] looks happy” to which Sasha replies, “I’m always happy, sometimes I just forget” (6).  It is only after Sasha has stolen the wallet that Alex notes how happy she looks.  For Sasha, stealing seems to be the primary source of joy in her life and must be continued if she is to “remember” what happiness feels like.  Sasha’s form of happiness seems to differ from the one her therapist, Coz, imagines for her.  On page 17, Sasha tells Coz how she permitted Alex to use the bath salts she had stolen, which could be seen as either a selfless or selfish action depending upon how Sasha viewed the bath salts: happiness she was willing to share or making use of her stolen goods.  Sasha notes on page 17, “She was aware of having made a move in the story she and Coz were writing, taking a symbolic step.  But toward the happy ending or away from it?”  Coz believes a happy ending for Sasha would entail an end to her stealing, the exact opposite of how Sasha currently derives her happiness.

The motivation for why Sasha steals is not revealed to the reader until about two hundred pages later in the novel when Sasha lives as a teenager on the streets of Naples, stealing in order to survive.  When Sasha’s uncle, Ted, finally finds her, he becomes another victim of her stealing.  Ted confronts Sasha, only to find her incredibly upset over having someone criticize her way of living, and, indirectly, her method of finding happiness.  Sasha says to Ted, “I mop the halls to pay for this room, okay?  I sweep the fucking courtyard.  Does that make you happy?”  Ted does not answer, and instead asks her, “Does it make you happy?” (231).

Happiness becomes synonymous with independence for Sasha, something that, in her mind, only stealing can provide for her.  However, the independence Sasha associates stealing with is actually an illusion because she still relies on others with greater resources than herself.  At the conclusion of the chapter, Ted reminisces seeing Sasha twenty years later, after college and starting a family.  He finds himself grinning at her and her new life, which seem significantly better.  In the next chapter, it is inferred that Sasha has given up stealing and refuses to admit her ugly past to her daughter.  On page 233, Sasha refers to the sun outside when she says, “See, it’s mine.”  The sun is now what symbolizes the happiness she always strived for, when earlier in the book, happiness was a physical manifestation of any item she had stolen.  Now, happiness is represented through the Californian sun that constantly shines on her family through their home, something that Sasha can never steal but rather experience with her family.  Sasha redefines happiness as sharing a life with others rather than stealing from others in order to live a solitary life.