45 pages • 1 hour read
Bess Streeter AldrichA Lantern in Her Hand
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1928A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 30-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 30 Summary
Abbie’s granddaughter Katherine spends more time with her so she can be in the vicinity of a man in town she loves. Abbie and Katherine are very different, and Abbie finds Katherine’s manner of speaking and thoughts about love too modern and shocking.
Chapter 31 Summary
Abbie’s entire family gathers at her home to celebrate Christmas. Her children reminisce about their pasts and the simple pleasures of childhood life on the farm. Abbie observes them with love and pride.
Chapter 32 Summary
Abbie loves listening to the music on her radio. One day, she hears her daughter Isabelle singing on the radio. This helps her remember her passion for singing.
Chapter 33 Summary
Laura, now 12 years old, reads Abbie a poem she wrote that moves Abbie deeply. Abbie and Laura enjoy a close relationship; they understand one another on another level. Abbie encourages Laura’s artistic leanings. Laura enjoys listening to Abbie’s stories about the past. Abbie teaches Laura that memories and dreams are a valuable part of reality.
Chapter 34 Summary
When Abbie is 80 years old, Nebraska enjoys an enormously successful harvest season: “The fields were springs from which never-ending brooklets of yellow wheat, pouring into the thrashers, rolled forth in golden streams to form a mighty river of grain” (268). Abbie attends Katherine’s wedding and finally has someone to pass down the family pearls to. Mack finds the painting of Abbie’s grandmother, Isabelle Anders-Mackenzie, that Abbie’s family had to give up decades ago. Abbie cries with joy over the painting but also mourns all of the dreams she never achieved.
Chapter 35 Summary
At Katherine’s wedding, Abbie’s family tries to make sure Abbie is comfortable in her old age. Abbie notes that her family is always asking about her physical well-being, but never about how she is feeling. Her children notice that Abbie has been saying random phrases out loud, which worries them.
Chapter 36 Summary
After Katherine’s wedding, Abbie feels worn down. She carries on with her household chores and listens to the radio. She feels sick and can’t stop thinking about death. She lays down in her bed, talking to Will about death. Abbie had always feared death, but now she realizes that death is easy. Abbie dies, and her family mourns their loss while Laura celebrates Abbie’s life.
Chapters 30-36 Analysis
The final chapters of A Lantern in Her Hand depict Abbie’s elderly years as the culmination of decades of hard work and devotion to love. These chapters emphasize the themes of The Importance of Family and The Power of Art.
In these chapters, Abbie is characterized through her wisdom. She tries to help her granddaughter Katherine understand love as deeper than the superficiality with which Katherine, in her privileged existence, thinks of it: Happiness and romance give way to motherhood, sorrow, and ultimately, service. Abbie’s view of love is informed by the traditional norms that have shaped her life and her role as a guide for the family: “Yes….I think that is what love is to a woman…a lantern in her hand” (243). Abbie has lived long enough to understand that life is defined by love in its many forms. Here, the lantern appears again, a symbol of the unconditional and generous love Abbie extended to others. This type of love is fulfilling, the novel argues, because it keeps people engaged with life and excited about the future.
Abbie is old enough to now see how her commitment to love has served her throughout her life. It is because of her love that her children and grandchildren have become well-educated, respected by society, and successful. Two of Abbie’s sons are influential businessmen and politicians. These two sons therefore take Abbie’s pioneer spirit to a new, more modern level. Furthermore, Abbie’s daughter Isabelle and her granddaughter Laura fulfill the dreams Abbie couldn’t accomplish for herself. In seeing her dreams come true vicariously through Isabelle and Laura, Abbie’s aspirations and ambitions also come full circle. Isabelle becomes a successful singer, embodying Abbie’s own talent and passion. It is enough for Abbie to know that Isabelle is doing what Abbie always wanted to do. Isabelle isn’t tied down to responsibilities that keep her away from her passion thanks to Abbie’s lifelong pioneering work. Laura shows early signs of being a poet, thereby fulfilling Abbie’s secondary artistic goal to be a writer. Laura is close with Abbie and listens carefully to Abbie’s life stories. This implies that Laura will be the one to honor her grandmother’s legacy through the writing process. Abbie’s influence on artists has made her a version of an artist herself.
As Abbie gets older, her mind is sharp, but her body weakens: A lifetime of arduous manual labor and concern for others finally catches up to her. Abbie’s body, therefore, becomes the plot device that traces her journey through life.
Abbie’s home is symbolic of The Pioneer Spirit. No matter how old Abbie becomes, she never gives up on her home or her loved ones. Her love for family and home keeps her going until the end of her life. In having a full and long life, Abbie learns not to fear death. For the majority of Abbie’s life, “Death was her enemy. All her life she had hated death and feared it. It had taken her mother, and Will and the baby and countless old friends” (288). Death, the final frontier, is not the fearsome and painful experience Abbie dreaded. Instead, it is part of the natural order of things and, therefore, it is a pleasant experience. She has worked hard and sacrificed for decades, and now, in death, she can finally rest knowing that her family is secure and well-loved.
