Reinvention
Maryna is offering her community an opportunity to reinvent themselves alongside her. Frustrated by her own lack of success in her acting career, Maryna blames her failure upon the Russian occupation. She convinces everyone to move to America because the economic opportunity and individual freedom will solve their problems. Unfortunately, this ideal is quickly shattered by the reality of hard work and the difficulty of real success. Through the process, however, Maryna does understand her error and decides to try acting once again. This time she devotes herself to success, allowing no excuses or distractions, even (or especially) from Bogdan. Using the name Madam Marina Zalenska, Maryna literally reinvents herself. She abandons her old desires, habits, and identity in order to participate in a self-reformation from the ground up. In this way she successfully responds to the high demands of the theater.
The Illusion of the American Dream
As a narrative about Polish immigrants to America, Sontag's novel revolves around the illusion of the American Dream. For starters, Maryna truly believes that American opportunity will solve all of her and her friends' problems. She is unwilling to admit that the work will be just as difficult personally in America as back home. When everyone arrives and quickly realizes that failure is just as ready here as before, most lose heart. They had thought that the location was the key to their success, but clearly this wasn't the case. Although American freedom did offer more opportunity, the success of the commune depended almost exclusively upon the initiative and devotion of the people. They learned firsthand that equality of opportunity doesn't equal equality of outcome.
Communism
As Poles, Maryna and her community almost intuitively set out to establish a commune in America. They agree to participate in American freedom, but they still bring with them their old patterns of behavior. This is not to say that communism prohibits their success. The size of their community allows them all to truly benefit from shared resources, but ultimately they are not successful because not everyone participates according to the rules. Some are more honorable than others. Some are more capable than others. In either case, emotions and discord get the best of the little commune because they all start to engage in competition rather than cooperation. This is toxic to a communist community and eventually does seal the fate of Maryna's farming dream.
