51 pages • 1 hour read
The Great Alone
A 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 30-31Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 30 Summary
The police officers process Leni and lock her in jail with her son. When Tom comes, she introduces him to his grandson and sees “how it cracked him open” (411). Leni leaves MJ in Tom’s care while she spends the day in jail. Her lawyer comes by after Tom leaves with MJ and seems in a hurry. Large Marge bursts into the courtroom when Leni is present and insists the prosecutor drop the charges. Before the judge can respond, the governor calls and makes the request himself. As Leni leaves with Large Marge, she finds out Tom was the one who contacted the governor.
Large Marge then takes Leni to the Walker homestead. The scenic view moves Leni, and she sees how much Kaneq has grown. She meets Tom and his new wife at his home and asks to see Matthew. Large Marge and Tom’s wife take MJ while Tom takes her to Matthew. She admits to feeling guilty for leaving Matthew. Tom tries to reassure her but tells her that if she and Cora had come to him, he would have protected them. Tom leads Leni to what used to be Geneva’s cabin. He knocks, tells Leni she should go in, and gives her privacy. Inside, Leni sees paintings and a wheelchair. Leni initially thinks Matthew doesn’t know her and resolves to come later and talk to him, especially about MJ.
Chapter 31 Summary
Matthew tells Leni to wait. His family told him about Leni, but he has since forgotten. He still has pain from his accident and has memory problems. He stands with difficulty and tells her he learned to read again through Leni’s letters and is scared now that Leni will reject him. He wonders why she stopped writing him and asks where she was. Leni tells him Seattle and that it was a long story. She says he needs to meet someone, and Matthew thinks she will introduce him to her husband, but Leni tells him it’s his son. At first, Matthew is happy, but then he feels inadequate given his condition. He feels like he can’t be a father, but Leni tells him they will do it together: “Kids are durable, and so is their love” (426). Leni introduces Matthew to MJ, and they spend time together. Tom asks Leni if she’s staying, and she confirms this.
Leni feels as though she should go to her family’s old cabin, but she is reluctant. She goes alone, and the tangle of emotions overcomes her. Matthew approaches her and gives her support. Two days later, they go out with the Walkers and the whole town to scatter Cora’s ashes. Leni realizes that her mother is not gone if others remember her. Leni thinks that her love for her mother, MJ, Alaska, and Matthew is durable. The novel ends with an article that Leni writes years later. Now she and Matthew have three children, and Leni has found success with her photography after the Exxon Valdez incident. She discusses how Alaska doesn’t make character but reveals it, such as her father’s and her own.
Chapters 30-31 Analysis
Leni’s return shows that her bonds of love are durable and transcend time and distance. As Cora told Leni, love doesn’t disappear, and while there are challenges to her relationship with Matthew that come from his condition and their separation, they are able to reunite. Leni reassures Matthew that together they can build a home for their son. Their reunion echoes the way Cora reconnected with her parents after their separation. It also echoes the way Leni and Matthew’s friendship resumed after the seasons forced them apart as children. Leni’s relationship with Matthew has undergone a change. Before Leni left, she wanted to shield Matthew from her troubled home. However, when Leni finally returns to her old cabin, she allows Matthew to join her and accepts his support.
Let’s return home is also a way of reuniting with her mother, as Alaska brings together Leni’s past, present, and future. Leni feels her past and present blur throughout her arrival in Alaska, where her memories overlap or sometimes clash with the present. The past within the present moves her at her old cabin, where Leni resolves to make the future about remembering the positive aspects of her past. This reunion has a sensory dimension; Leni feels “her mother’s touch in the breeze, hear[s] her voice on the sound of the rising tide” (436), and she realizes that her and her mother’s love endures even beyond death. If Alaska is within Leni, then Cora is within Leni as well—now a different alignment than from when Leni linked Alaska to her father. Leni sees her own relationship with her mother mirrored back at her in the deep bond Matthew and their son may develop in the future.
Unlock all 51 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Kristin Hannah
