Albert Road Symbol Analysis

Albert Road is the location one block away from Leah’s house where Felix is fatally stabbed. It represents how the fates of everyone in Northwest London are connected despite barriers that people erect based on race and class. For all of Leah’s arguments with Michel, their existence together is relatively sedate, and so it is shocking for Leah to hear about a murder so close to her home. The news report of the stabbing helps Leah realize how different her life is from the life of someone who lives just a street away, including how she can be working class but still have the privilege of safety and stability compared to someone like Felix. Natalie’s even more expensive Victorian home is also not far from the site of the stabbing, and she finds herself passing right by the location after an argument with her husband, Frank, motivates her to go outside for a walk.

The fatal stabbing on Albert Road ends up drawing both Leah and Natalie back into a past that they thought they’d left behind. Their pasts at the Caldwell council estate come back to them when they learn that former classmate (and Caldwell resident) Nathan seems to have been part of the mugging that led to the murder. Nathan himself can’t escape his past, because his expulsion from school and the racism he has faced over the years (particularly as people began to fear him after he grew out of boyhood) have all contributed to his addiction and unemployment, leaving crime as one of his only options to survive. Although these characters’ lives have very different trajectories, Albert Road illustrates how urban life continues to tie them together—despite their attempts to become new people and leave behind their pasts.