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August 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
It is noted that the “well-being of a neuron” is dependent on “its ability to communicate with other neurons.” Without this communication, neurons atrophy: “Useless, an abandoned neuron will die.”
Neurons, like people, need communication in order to survive. The more opportunities for communication are lost, the faster neurons die off, and the faster people lose their sense of self.
Themes
It is the beginning of the fall semester at Harvard and Alice heads back to her office for the first time. When she gets there, Eric asks her to come to his office to talk. In his office, Eric tells her he wants to talk to her about the student evaluations from the previous semester. Usually Alice would read these as “a vanity check” because they were always positive. However, this is the first time Eric has wanted to talk about them with her and she worries that, “for the very first time in her career,” she won’t like what the evaluations say.
Alice has always been proud of the fact that she is a great professor, and her aptitude for teaching is reflected in the glowing student evaluations she typically gets. However, it is unusual for Eric to want to look through them with her, and his request that she talk with him about them is her first indication that something has gone wrong and she has failed to live up to her own high standards.
Themes
Eric gives Alice the evaluations to look over: they are not the usual high ratings she receives. Alice has never received such poor evaluations, forcing her to accept that her “teaching performance had […] suffered more” than she thought.
Alice sees that her performance “suffered more” than she thought, indicating that she knew she had been off her game. However, she had been able to convince herself that she committed only minor slips that students would not think too much of.
Themes
Eric expresses his surprise over the results of the evaluations and then shows Alice the written student responses, which show that many students felt her class “was a waste of time” and one notes that she had once come to class, sat among the students, and then abruptly left. Eric asks her if there are problems at home, if she’s depressed, and if she has a drinking problem. Worried about the stigma alcoholism carries, Alice tells Eric about her Alzheimer’s.
Above all, Alice values her reputation because it will solidify her place in the field of psycholinguistics. If her reputation sours, she will be phased out of the field and all of her hard work will soon be forgotten because of the mistake she made at the end of her career. The only way Alice can save herself from this is to come clean about her diagnosis, even though that will also mean having to step down from teaching and research.
Themes
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Alice tells Eric that she “[doesn’t] want to be a bad teacher,” but had hoped to make it through to her sabbatical year. Eric suggests she take medical leave for the year to reach her sabbatical. Because of her tenure, Eric cannot fire her, but she knows he doesn’t want her teaching anymore. She agrees to his plan with the caveat that she be allowed to stay on as Dan’s adviser and continue attending meetings. Eric agrees, but tells her she also shouldn’t speak at other universities, either. Alice agrees and prepares to tell her colleagues.
Although Eric can’t fire Alice, it’s clear that he wants to sweep her under the rug before her behavior reflects badly on Harvard as a whole. Alice’s desire to stay on as Dan’s advisor reflects how desperately she wants to hang on to as much of this part of herself as she can without causing more widespread damage in the department, by continued to teach or travel for lectures.
Themes
Alice sends an email to the rest of the psychology department to tell them about her Alzheimer’s. At first, her friends and colleagues all make a point of telling her how sorry for her they are, but “they [leave] her alone as quickly as possible.” Alice knows that this is because “[f]acing her meant facing her mental frailty and the unavoidable thought that […] it could happen to them.”
Alice thought of her colleagues like family, so it is both surprising and extremely difficult to see them all avoid her. She treasured the relationship she had with them, believing they treasured it, as well. Their avoidance of her reveals how fragile those relationships were and how greatly she overestimated their depth.
Themes
At the first lunch seminar of the semester, Leslie (Eric’s graduate student) is scheduled to share her research idea. As people filter in, Alice knows that many are choosing to stand rather than sit by her. Suddenly Dan comes running in, sees her, and sits next to her himself.
Dan’s decision to sit by Alice reaffirms her belief about the power she had as a professor. By sitting next to her, Dan sends the message that her diagnosis does not change the gratitude and genuine friendship he feels toward her because she had always been such a good teacher and mentor to him.
Themes
Leslie’s presentation runs on for an hour before opening the floor for discussion. Alice, who has managed to follow the whole thing, raises her hand and makes a suggestion for a new kind of control group that Leslie needs. Many people nod in agreement and Leslie takes “vigorous notes.” This makes Alice feel “victorious and a little smug,” since “the fact that she had Alzheimer’s didn’t mean that she no longer deserved to be heard.” However, when she repeats the same advice she gave before, Alice notices that nobody seems impressed, that their “body language suggested embarrassment and dread.” Leslie thanks her, but doesn’t take notes, leaving Alice confused.
This is Alice’s first slip-up since sharing her diagnosis with the department. Before her news, they may have looked over it, believing she had a lot on her mind and had forgotten that she’d said that already. As an Alzheimer’s patient, however, the mistake makes everyone embarrassed and uncomfortable as it seems to reaffirm their belief that she is incapable of really contributing to the department and is even a liability for them.
Themes
With no work to do, Alice feels “like the biggest part of her self […] had died.” She looks out of her office window and tells John that she wishes they’d “spent more time together.” John incredulously tells her that they’ve “spent [their] whole lives together.” Alice thinks about this and realizes they’ve “been living next to each other for a long time” and tells him that they shouldn’t have spent so much time apart. John tells her that he likes their lives and their “balance between independence to pursue our […] passions and a life together.” Alice thinks about this and “wishe[s] she’d been his passion.”
Without work to do, Alice is forced to confront the question she asked herself once earlier: who is she if she’s not a researcher and professor at Harvard? She sees that her achievements at Harvard ring hollow after her colleagues gradually drop her from their lives, leaving her with only her family to fall back on. Alice begins to wish she had devoted more of her time and energy to her marriage and family, which is what she means when she tells John that she regrets not spending more time together. John, however, can’t understand this because he is unable or unwilling to view the situation from Alice’s perspective. Alice’s wish that she had been John’s “passion” echoes her earlier temptation to romanticize their parting kiss before her trip to Los Angeles in the beginning of the book.
Themes
Alice sits alone in her office and looks out the window, thinking about the empty day in front of her. Her BlackBerry alerts her that it’s time to take her daily quiz. Although she is able to answer the questions, she leaves out key details, including part of her address and the year Anna was born.
Alice’s office window seems to be one of the last ties she has to her former success now that she has been stripped of her identity as a Harvard professor and research scientist. Meanwhile, her inability to remember all the details of the questions for her quiz shows a new decline in her long-term memory, although that does not seem to trouble her as much as she initially believed it would—perhaps because her self-awareness is also declining.
Themes
