62 pages • 2 hours read
Fredrik BackmanMy Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Land-of-Almost-Awake
The Land-of-Almost-Awake is the setting for Granny’s fairy tales. It features a castle, several kingdoms, and a colorful cast of characters. As Elsa completes her mission to deliver all of Granny’s apology letters, she realizes that the Land-of-Almost-Awake is analogous to real life. The castle is the apartment building, the kingdoms represent various traits and virtues, and the characters are the tenants. In this way, the Land-of-Almost-Awake serves a dual purpose: It provides Elsa a much-needed escape from life’s harsh realities while simultaneously providing Granny a means to impart crucial life lessons that endures after her death.
Harry Potter/Elsa’s Gryffindor Scarf
Harry Potter is Elsa’s favorite literary figure; she has read the series many times. Elsa closely identifies with Harry in part because he is also considered “different” and bullied at school. Elsa wears her Gryffindor scarf everywhere, even though other schoolchildren tell her it’s ugly. In this sense, the scarf represents Elsa’s differentness. In the Harry Potter books, all the most courageous students, including Harry, are sorted into the Gryffindor House. Therefore, the scarf also symbolizes Elsa’s bravery.
Granny’s Tobacco
When Elsa is sitting outside the undertaker’s, she first notices the presence of Sam by the smell of his tobacco, which is the same as Granny’s: “Though Elsa can’t think why, it makes her feel warm and secure” (50). Later, Elsa learns that Granny introduced Sam to that particular tobacco at the hospital where she saved his life. Granny is never sure whether she did the right thing by saving Sam’s life; after all, if she had let him die, he couldn’t have hurt the boy with the syndrome or his mother. Elsa also struggles with feelings of whether it is wrong to wish that Sam were dead. Thus, the tobacco, both reassuring and threatening to Elsa, represents moral ambiguity.
Renault
Renault is Granny’s car (Elsa uses the name of the car manufacturer as its proper name). Renault is “old and rusty and French, and when you change gears it makes an ungodly racket, like an old Frenchman with a cough” (22). It doesn’t look like the other cars on the road; it has an air of disrespectability about it. Thus, Renault is symbolic of Granny herself. Britt-Marie is frustrated when Renault mysteriously appears parked in Britt-Marie’s spot. This mirrors Britt-Marie’s frustration when Granny returned from war to care for Elsa, a responsibility that Britt-Marie had assumed would be hers. But ultimately, Britt-Marie drives off in Granny’s Renault to destinations unknown, symbolizing that she has made her peace with Granny and even adopted some of her adventurous spirit.
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By Fredrik Backman
