75 pages • 2 hours read
Megan E. FreemanAlone
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaSymbols & Motifs
Books and Libraries
Throughout Alone, books and libraries symbolize Maddie’s growing knowledge, resourcefulness, and research skills, as well as companionship and even spirituality. Once 12-year-old Maddie is left alone with no internet or electricity, the library becomes an invaluable resource to her, assisting her in several aspects of her survival. Maddie locates and reads nonfiction books to learn how to build a fire, how to grow a garden of fresh vegetables, and how to safely handle a gun and improve her aim to reliably hit a target. Although Maddie possessed certain camping and survival skills prior to the evacuation, she is able to fill in gaps in her knowledge thanks to the information found in library books. In this way, books are one avenue for Maddie’s resourcefulness, allowing her to procure food, shelter, and safety.
Books and libraries have additional significance for Maddie beyond helping her survive in basic, literal ways. Maddie ultimately finds the challenge of feeding and housing herself and George to pale in comparison to the challenge of enduring loneliness and isolation. She starts to view the library as her “book church,” a place of great spiritual significance and nourishment. She especially looks for books with photographs of the author on the cover, referring to the books by the first name of their authors, such as “Mary” or “Emily.” This choice demonstrates how Maddie views the books almost as friends or companions with whom she is conversing. For example, she is certain that specific lines or questions from poems were meant specifically for her, such as Mary Oliver’s question of what the reader plans to do with their one life, which is both precious and wild. This question prompts Maddie toward a greater level of maturity, encouraging her to live in the present and find beauty even in her current situation.
Houses
In literature, houses often symbolize home, comfort, respite, and family. Houses symbolize all these things in Alone, but the specific ways Maddie interacts with houses offer variations on these basic symbolisms. At the beginning of the novel, Maddie switches each week between two different houses: In one, her mother lives with her stepdad, Paul, and her step- and half-brothers Elliot, James, and Trevor. In the other, her dad lives with her stepmom, Jennifer. These constant switches symbolize Maddie’s ambivalence about her family arrangement—although she has no qualms with any member of her family, she resents the feeling of being constantly adrift as well as not feeling like a complete part of either family. She envies others in her family who can form closer and more comfortable relationships due to always being together. She feels like an oddball because she has no single “model home.”
Although Maddie resents switching houses at first, the fact that she has easy access to two houses that she’s familiar with, along with all her family’s possessions within the houses, benefits her immensely and enables her survival. This mirrors the change in Maddie’s view of her family: Instead of seeing two houses and sets of parents as a drawback, she comes to see the strengths of each house and set of parents. Because of the diversity of her family, she has more resources and companions than most people, more love to share. The two houses help Maddie survive because with no electricity, heat, air conditioning, or running water, each one is only easily inhabitable during half the year due to Colorado’s intense weather patterns. Later, when Maddie’s mother’s house burns down, it’s also her father’s house that gives her respite.
Maddie’s incident at the model home also symbolizes her changing relationship with her family; notably, this change occurs even though her family is not physically present or even in contact with her. At first, she’s angry at the term “model home” and the assumptions about her family that it represents. She’s mad that society has not accommodated all family arrangements. Maddie’s subsequent encounter with the tornado, her injury, and her recovery, in turn, symbolize Maddie’s emotional journey: her confusing and angry feelings, her emotional wound, and her process of healing and maturing.
Ghosts, Ghost Towns, and Conjuring
Several characters are referred to as ghosts throughout the novel, to different effects. Ghosts can not only represent the souls of the deceased but also symbolize memories of others that persist despite the person’s physical absence. The metaphor of ghosts and conjuring is somewhat stronger than simple “memories” and helps to indicate that Maddie still feels that she is interacting with these absent people. Viewing her absent family and friends as “ghosts” that she can “conjure” also gives Maddie some small measure of agency over her loneliness when she is sick, very upset, or in particular danger.
The concept of a “ghost town” is not specific to this novel but generally refers to a town that has been abandoned or mostly abandoned. In a literal sense, Maddie is surrounded by abandoned things. In addition, though, living in such a town, Maddie also begins to see herself as the “ghost” at times. Even though she’s still alive and has a physical body, the loneliness can be so intense that she feels she’s just “haunting” the place rather than actually living. This feeling changes after Mary Oliver prompts Maddie to seize the day and remember to value her own life even if she’s the only human around. After she’s rescued, Maddie again views part of herself as a “ghost.” However, this moment is now a reflection on what Maddie has endured and how these experiences have shaped the young woman she has become.
