51 pages • 1 hour read
Kristin HannahThe Great Alone
Kristin HannahFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Large Marge arranges a flight for Cora and Leni to Seattle. Leni thinks about the gift Matthew planned to give her. It was a clipping from an article his grandmother wrote about Alaska, where she writes: “Wild. That’s how I describe it all. My love. My life. Alaska” (347). In Seattle, they go to Grandma and Grandpa Golliher’s house and tell them that Ernt is dead. Leni blurts out that she is pregnant and keeping the baby, but this time, the Gollihers accept the pregnancy.
That night, Leni climbs out into the roof, and her mom joins her. While Cora continues to blame herself for what happened, Leni blames her dad. Later, they go to the library at the University of Washington and look at Alaskan newspapers to discover that the authorities have declared them missing. Cora explains that according to her father, a lawyer, it might take seven years for authorities to legally declare them dead.
Chapter 26 Summary
At night, Leni hears her mother talking to her grandparents. Her grandfather secures them falsified birth certificates. Cora is surprised at her strait-laced parents doing this, but they say they have all changed. They say they regret not listening to Cora when she was younger, and she replies that she regrets not listening to them. The police come to let Leni’s grandparents know that Cora and Leni are missing and presumed dead. Cora tells Leni that because her parents have lied for them, they need to always be careful.
Leni writes letters to Matthew that she can’t send: “I have to write to you, even if the words are lost” (362). She also calls the facility every day. Leni and her mom have moved to a small rental house near her grandparents. Spring comes, and while the investigation is still open, no one comes to look for them. Leni thinks that if she has a daughter, she will name her Lily after Matthew’s grandmother. However, she gives birth to a boy with her mom beside her and names him Matthew. With a strong desire to protect her son, Leni resolves not to call Matthew’s facility anymore.
Chapters 25-26 Analysis
Leni and Cora’s tight mother-daughter bond parallels the respective enduring bonds Leni and Cora have with Cora’s parents. Cora’s parents accept Leni and Cora and protect them even after years of strain, once more emphasizing the strength of parent-child bonds. Leni sees how this love transforms them, allowing both the Gollihers and Cora to recognize their mistakes. Love also prompts Cora’s previously strait-laced father to pay for false documents from a client and leads both parents to lie to the police to keep Cora and Leni safe. Cora herself changes in her attitude towards them. From feeling stifled and unheard, she comes to trust and confide in her parents.
Through witnessing Cora mend her relationship with her parents in these chapters, Leni comes to know love as the need to reconnect despite separation, “knit[ting] […] lives together, dropped stitches and all” (363). Leni has been trying to define love throughout the novel after seeing her mother enable her father’s abuse. She has wondered if love is putting one’s own needs before another’s, such as when she and Cora followed Ernt to Alaska. She has also wondered if love was the constant forgiveness that Cora granted Ernt. In seeing the reconciliation between Cora and her parents, Leni feels hopeful about the durability of love, which she demonstrates in the letters she writes to Matthew and her repeated calling of his facility.
Leni’s attachment to Matthew creates tension in these chapters as Leni and Cora take on new identities, and Leni must put her Alaskan life behind her. This tension resolves through the parent-child bond, in this case, Leni’s with her son. Leni’s feelings for Matthew are too strong for her to stop inquiring about Matthew until she fully inhabits her “mother” identity. After the birth of her son, Leni cuts her last outward ties to her past and stops calling Matthew’s rehab facility to protect the baby.
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By Kristin Hannah
