Previous
Chapter 85
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Between Shades of Gray, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Morality, Integrity, and Sacrifice
Strength and Identity
The Power of Art
Genocide
Women and Mothers
Summary
Analysis
It is April 25, 1995, in Kaunas, Lithuania. A construction worker finds a wooden box in the ground. Inside is a large glass jar full of papers. The papers describe the imprisonment of the Lithuanian people in Siberia. After they were eventually released, the Soviets promised to kill anyone who spoke of the deportations. Lina is the author of the letters, and she writes that Andrius is her husband—she is now Lina Arvydas. She writes that the papers include detailed descriptions of the camps, and may horrify people, but they are meant to stir human compassion such that these evils never occur again. She buried the letters on July 9th, 1954 in Kaunas.
In this epilogue, the reader learns that the information in the novel has essentially been compiled from writings Lina left in a box in Kaunas, thirteen years after she was first deported. Though we do not know the rest of the details of her imprisonment—we know it was at least a decade, as she mentioned when she noted that she wouldn’t look in a mirror for over ten years—we do know that she and Andrius reunited and married. However, it was years before the truth of the deportees’ plight came to light. Lina writes that she fervently hopes her documentation of her suffering helps to prevent further genocides in the future.
Themes
