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The car that Chris and his mother drive out to the lake symbolizes Chris’s late father, Alan. The car—which belonged to Chris’s father—brings back difficult, painful memories for Chris, due to the fact that it smells so much like his father used to. Furthermore, the car’s cruise-control sensor, which beeps loudly anytime Chris exceeds the speed limit, makes the connection between the car and his father far more difficult for Chris to bear. Each time the sensor goes off on their drive to the lake, it startles Chris—and, strangely, it makes him feel guilty. In this way, driving his father’s car makes Chris feel like his overbearing father is still nudging him and trying to control his behavior, even from beyond the grave. Sometimes, Chris only jumps at the noise; other times, it makes him angry as it reminds him of all the ways that his father failed him in life.
Interestingly, the car and its sensor only seem to bother Chris on the drive to the lake to scatter his father’s ashes. As he and his mother get back in the car to head home, Chris makes no mention of not looking forward to smelling his father’s characteristic scent. He also doesn’t acknowledge the possibility that in order to make it back to the gift shop his mother wants to visit before it closes, he might have to speed—thereby triggering the sensor. With this, the story suggests that the ritual of scattering his father’s ashes has made his father’s memory (and the accompanying grief and mixed emotions about the past) easier for Chris to face. Following the ritual, Chris is able to focus on his mother and on improving their relationship rather than on his father’s mistakes. By the story’s end, then, the car seems to have become just a car in Chris’s mind—just as Chris’s father will gradually become a memory that will perhaps become easier to live with over time.
Alan’s Car Quotes in Ashes
The Ashes quotes below all refer to the symbol of Alan’s Car. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Ashes
Quotes
Since his father died, Chris keeps coming across small reminders everywhere, set like mousetraps ready to snap, like little buried landmines. Today, for instance, they’re in his father’s car, which his mother says she can’t bear to sell. It smells so characteristically, still, of shoe polish and peppermints, and in the back seat lies the woollen tartan scarf his father had worn for years. Each detail had assailed Chris as he’d opened the door, reaching over to stow the box in its calico bag on the back seat.
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“Here, here,” his mother had remonstrated. “At my feet.”
Where else? he’d thought sourly, finding the right key for the ignition, as the lifetime habit of keeping his responses to himself closed his mouth in a firm and well-worn line. A line that suggested nothing, broached nothing, gave nothing away.
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His father’s car has some kind of cruse-control check that beeps at him every time he inadvertently goes above the set limit, and he keeps jumping when he hears it, feeling a ludicrous amount of guilt.
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Alan’s Car Symbol Timeline in Ashes
The timeline below shows where the symbol Alan’s Car appears in Ashes. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Ashes
...snap, or like landmines. Today, for example, he and his mother are driving his father’s car—his mother insists she can’t bear to sell it. It smells so much like shoe polish...
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...the box at her feet instead. Sourly, Chris thought “Where else?” But he found the car key and, as he’s done his whole life, kept his response to himself. His mouth...
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As Chris and his mother walk to the car from the café, she gripes that the scones cost too much. Chris knows that the...
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Chris stands by the car with the cotton bag, waiting for his mother as she browses a craft shop’s outdoor...
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Chris’s father’s car has a cruise-control check that beeps at him whenever he exceeds the posted speed limit,...
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...with his father. His father, she insists, would’ve loved the record of the trips. The car beeps again, and Chris jumps. His mother sighs, looks away, and says (half to herself)...
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...the best his mother can come up with: the two of them going out to carry out a ceremony all alone, in a place where the symbolism is just an invention....
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...his mother if she’s ready to leave. By the time they get back to the car, she’s pulled herself together enough to ask if they can get back to the gift...
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