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Trauma and Violence
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Great Alone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Great Alone takes place in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, an event that starkly divided America, and Leni’s parents stand on different sides of that divide. Ernt went off to war despite Cora’s protests; he regards himself as a patriot and wants to protect the nation he loves. While Ernt is away, Cora lives with Leni in a number of hippie communes and protests the war. Upon returning from Vietnam, Ernt is a changed man. As he struggles to cope with his trauma, he starts to abuse Cora and perceives danger everywhere.
Admittedly, danger is not hard to find in the aftermath of the Vietnam War; Hannah uses a number of real historical events to provide the backdrop to her novel, including the Ted Bundy murders, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, and the Cold War. However, even with such dangers in the world, Ernt’s paranoia is excessive. He lives in remote Alaska—where the natural environmental is more likely to claim one’s life than another human—and yet is still worried about people coming to hurt him and take his land. Ernt’s paranoia reaches a peak when he decides to barricade himself and his family from the outside world. Ironically, Ernt’s paranoia results in the exact circumstances he was trying to avoid—his death—brought about by the one person he did not expect to hurt him—his wife. In the end, paranoia is a condition that destroys Ernt by blinding him to the real threat to his family: himself.
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Paranoia and the Vietnam War ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Paranoia and the Vietnam War appears in each chapter of The Great Alone. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Paranoia and the Vietnam War Quotes in The Great Alone
Below you will find the important quotes in The Great Alone related to the theme of Paranoia and the Vietnam War.
Chapter 1
Quotes
Mama was engaged in a continual quest to “find” herself. In the past few years, she’d tried EST and the human potential movement, spiritual training, Unitarianism. Even Buddhism. She’d cycled through them all, cherry-picked pieces and bits. Mostly, Leni thought, Mama had come away with T-shirts and sayings. Things like, What is, is, and what isn’t, isn’t. None of it seemed to amount to much.
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Chapter 3
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“Two kinds of folks come up to Alaska, Cora. People running to something and people running away from something. The second kind—you want to keep your eye out for them. And it isn’t just the people you need to watch out for, either. Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.”
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Chapter 4
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“Down there,” Mad Earl went on, “Outside, people are standing in line for gas while OPEC laughs all the way to the bank. And you think the good ole USSR forgot about us after Cuba? Think again. We got Negroes calling themselves Black Panthers and raisin’ their fists at us, and illegal immigrants stealing our jobs. So what do people do? They protest. They sit down. They throw bombs at empty post office buildings. They carry signs and march down streets. Well. Not me. I got a plan.”
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Chapter 5
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“Our friends showed up at noon to help us prepare for winter,” Dad said. “No. They’re better than friends, Red. They’re comrades.”
Comrades?
Leni frowned. Were they communists now? She was pretty sure her dad hated the commies as much as he hated the Man and hippies.
“This is what the world should be, Red. People helping each other instead of killing their mothers for a little bread.”
Leni couldn’t help noticing that almost everyone had a gun holstered at his or her waist.
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Chapter 10
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Leni saw his love for her, shining through his regret. It eroded her anger, made her question everything again. He didn’t want to hurt Mama, didn’t mean to. He was sick …
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Chapter 11
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Leni sighed. How was Mama’s unshakable belief in Dad any different than his fear of Armageddon? Did adults just look at the world and see what they wanted to see, think what they wanted to think? Did evidence and experience mean nothing?
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