Previous
Isolation
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Great Alone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Throughout Leni’s years in Kaneq, Alaska, the lines between family and community become blurred, as she begins to fear the former and yearn for the latter. Upon first arriving in Kaneq, Leni, Cora, and Ernt are all happy to be part of a community, albeit a small one. Leni manages to make a friend in school—Matthew—while Ernt and Cora bond with the Harlan family. Before long, however, Leni and Cora begin to worry about Ernt’s relationship with Earl Harlan. Though they are glad Ernt has a friend, Earl seems to feed Ernt’s paranoia; the two of them often discuss apocalyptic scenarios and how to prepare for them. In addition, Earl and Ernt’s rude and erratic behavior starts to isolate them both from their community and their own families. In a climactic moment in the novel, Earl dies of a heart attack, and Ernt is left with only Leni and Cora, both of whom fear him. It is this moment when Ernt begins to barricade the Allbright property, making sure no one gets in and no one gets out—including Matthew, whose father Tom Ernt especially hates. Meanwhile, Leni and Cora, who are quite fond of their neighbors, despair that they will never be able to leave their property again. Eventually, both Ernt and Cora die—Ernt is shot, Cora gets cancer—and Leni is left to pick up the pieces of her family. Always resilient, Leni makes her own family out of the Kaneq community; Marge acts as her surrogate mother, Tom her surrogate father, and Matthew her actual husband. By the end of the novel, Leni does not care whether she is biologically related to the Kaneq community; she feels that her community has become her family and enjoys a closer, healthier relationship to many of them than she ever had with Ernt.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…
Family and Community ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Family and Community appears in each chapter of The Great Alone. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
chapter length:
Get the entire The Great Alone LitChart as a printable PDF.
Family and Community Quotes in The Great Alone
Below you will find the important quotes in The Great Alone related to the theme of Family and Community.
Chapter 1
Quotes
Mama was engaged in a continual quest to “find” herself. In the past few years, she’d tried EST and the human potential movement, spiritual training, Unitarianism. Even Buddhism. She’d cycled through them all, cherry-picked pieces and bits. Mostly, Leni thought, Mama had come away with T-shirts and sayings. Things like, What is, is, and what isn’t, isn’t. None of it seemed to amount to much.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2
Quotes
“Your dad cleared out our savings account. And they won’t give me a credit card unless your father or my father cosigns.” She lit up a cigarette. “Sweet Jesus, it’s 1974. I have a job. I make money. And a woman can’t get a credit card without a man’s signature. It’s a man’s world, baby girl.” She started the car and sped down the street, turning onto the freeway.
Chapter 5
Quotes
“Our friends showed up at noon to help us prepare for winter,” Dad said. “No. They’re better than friends, Red. They’re comrades.”
Comrades?
Leni frowned. Were they communists now? She was pretty sure her dad hated the commies as much as he hated the Man and hippies.
“This is what the world should be, Red. People helping each other instead of killing their mothers for a little bread.”
Leni couldn’t help noticing that almost everyone had a gun holstered at his or her waist.
Chapter 6
Quotes
“This is Alaska. We live and let live. I don’t care if your dad hates my dad. You’re the one who matters, Leni.”
Chapter 9
Quotes
Leni didn’t want to think about a loss like that, the bone-breaking magnitude of it, but at a time like this there was no looking away, and when she did look it in the face, without blinking or turning away, she knew this: if she were Matthew, she would need a friend right now. Who knew how the friend could help, whether offering silent companionship or a clatter of words was better? That, the how, she would have to figure out on her own. But the what—friendship—that she knew for sure.
Chapter 13
Quotes
Every window was broken, the door had been hacked to bits, left as sharp shards of wood hanging from brass hinges, and white spray-painted graffiti covered the burnt walls. THIS IS A WARNING. STAY AWAY. ARROGANT PRICK. NO PROGRESS.
Chapter 23
Quotes
In the silence, Leni wondered if one person could ever really save another, or if it was the kind of thing you had to do for yourself.
Chapter 24
Quotes
Matthew’s eyes opened. One stared straight ahead. The other rolled wildly in the socket. That one staring green eye was the only part of him she recognized. He struggled, made a terrible moaning sound of pain.
He opened his mouth, screamed, “Bwaaaa…” He thrashed, bucked up like he was trying to break free. The halo made a clanging sound when it hit the bedrail. Blood started to form at the bolts in his temple. An alarm went off. “Hermmmm…”
Chapter 29
Quotes
It’s a bad idea, Leni. A terrible idea. If you’ve learned anything from your mother and what happened, it should be this: life—and the law—is hard on women. Sometimes doing the right thing is no help at all.
Chapter 31
Quotes
“You know what I love most about you, Leni Allbright?”
“What?”
“Everything.”
