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November 2004
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Still Alice, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ambition and Success
Loss of Identity
Illness, Marriage, and Family
Alzheimer’s, Quality of Life, and Happiness
Summary
Analysis
In December, Alice struggles to read through Dan’s thesis when she gets an email from Denise, who tells Alice that she’s talked to other young patients with early-onset dementia, several of whom showed interest and shared their contact information. Their names are Mary Johnson, Cathy Roberts, and Dan Sullivan. Alice sends them an email inviting them to her house for “tea, coffee, and conversation” on Sunday.
Denise’s email with the names of other patients Alice’s age suffering from dementia restores a sense of personal identity in Alice because she will once again have the opportunity to talk to and be heard by people who won’t treat her as just an Alzheimer’s patient.
Themes
Alice soon forgets Dan’s “thingy” as she thinks about what her new group of friends will be like. Alice can “feel herself declining […] slipping into that demented hole. Alone.” Her thoughts are interrupted by a beeping but can’t identify the source. She wonders if she’s having a hallucination, a typical symptom of Alzheimer’s. She wonders if the beeping could be her cell phone, but it is turned off when she finds it. She sits back on the couch to read Dan’s thesis.
Alzheimer’s progresses quickly, but as Alice’s thoughts show, it doesn’t move so fast that those who suffer from it are spared the painful feeling of declining over months of time. Alice recognizes everything that is happening to her, and one of the scariest parts of this is that the stigma of her disease has put an end to many of the connections she has with other people, which had helped her feel more like herself. She is also learning to doubt more of her senses, shown by her confusion over whether the sounds she hears are real or just in her mind.
Themes
John comes home and tells Alice to get ready to go out to dinner with their friends. Alice tells him she’s “having a hard day” and doesn’t want to go to dinner, but John insists, telling her they want to see her. Alice, however, thinks they’ll be relieved she’s not there. Alice hears the beeping again, but this time John hears it, too. He goes into the kitchen and finds a mug of cold tea in the microwave. John asks her if she’s sure she doesn’t want to go before telling her he won’t stay long. He leaves and she stands in the kitchen holding the mug “for a long time.”
Despite Alice’s decline, John is carrying on with life as normal. He fails to recognize how much Alice is struggling with her symptoms and the loss of so much of her identity, and this instance serves as another example of how he lacks the emotional intelligence to recognize that what Alice really wants and needs is quality time with him because he is one of the few people left with whom she has a meaningful connection.
Themes
John has not returned home when Alice decides to go to bed. On her way, she sees that she has three new emails, all from Cathy, Mary, and Dan Sullivan telling her they’d love to come to her house to meet. When the day comes, all three show up and the group quickly connects with one another. They take turns sharing their stories and experiences with dementia. As they laugh and share stories of “lost keys, lost thoughts, and lost life dreams,” Alice feels “unedited and truly heard.”
Although Alice tries to hang on to her former self when she’s with John and her children, she finds spending time with Cathy, Mary, and Dan liberating because with them there is no need to pretend to be better than she is. She is able to talk about her symptoms and problems without worrying about the emotional toll it will take because, unlike her family, these listeners understand from experience exactly what she’s going through.
Themes
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That Christmas, with all the kids back at home, John announces he’s be offered a new job at Sloan-Kettering in New York City. There is a silence before Anna asks him if he’s actually thinking of taking it and he says he is. Anna asks what this means for Alice, and John insists that he’ll be able to take care of her. John also argues that Alice soon won’t be able to tell the difference, which upsets Tom. Both Anna and Tom argue that Alice will decline rapidly if taken away. Although Alice is sitting right there, they talk about her “without including her, as if she had Alzheimer’s disease.”
The argument John has with Anna and Tom is reminiscent of the one Anna and Tom had with each other over whether or not Alice should be responsible for remembering what the time of Lydia’s play . Just as she did then, Alice finds herself in the awkward position of being talked about and argued over without anyone stopping to give her a voice or a say in what she wants for herself. This further reduces Alice’s sense of self-worth because it sends the message that her family no longer thinks it necessary to allow her a say in making decisions about her life.
Themes
Lydia appears in the doorway and tells them she might be in New York City because she’s applied to several colleges in the area and will be able to help no matter where Alice lives. Before Alice can tell Lydia how proud she is of her decision, but before she can form the words, the conversation about John’s job continues.
Lydia’s surprising choice to go to college adheres more to Alice’s early definition of what success and ambition looks like, since going to college will yield a tangible result. It also sends the message to Alice that her opinion—at least on this matter—carried weight and Lydia took it seriously, even though came from an Alzheimer’s patient. Although many aspects of Alice’s motherly role are slipping away, it’s clear that Lydia still values her mother’s input and wants to make her proud.
Themes
John tells the family that he’s made “plenty of sacrifices.” Alice knows he’s “always loved her, but she’d made it easy for him.” She doesn’t know “how much longer she [can] hang on to herself” and desperately wants to have another sabbatical year with John, something she “wouldn’t trade […] for anything.” However, he clearly would. She realizes that one of them would “have to sacrifice everything.”
Alice has made it “easy” for John to love her by always living up to his own estimation of her: never showing weakness, allowing him independence, and taking on the role of primary caregiver to their children so John would be free to pursue his own career in the early years of their marriage. Now that Alice needs him, however, he fails to reciprocate by giving her what she so desperately wants. Once again, Alice finds that she will have to sacrifice something she holds dear (a sabbatical year with him) to make John’s decision to move easier on him.
Themes
In her daily quiz, Alice is able to remember the month and how many children she has but fails to correctly answer the other three questions.
Although Alice is forgetting nearly everything else, she still remembers what is most essential, which is her identity as the mother of three children.
Themes
