Life as We Knew It

by

Susan Pfeffer

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Life as We Knew It makes teaching easy.
Themes and Colors
Survival and Death Theme Icon
Currency, Commodities, and Value Theme Icon
Faith Theme Icon
Legacy Theme Icon
Perspective Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Life as We Knew It, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Legacy Theme Icon

As Miranda and the others come to grips with their own mortality and the very real chance they might not survive, they grapple with the idea of legacy, what is or is not left behind to represent their lives. A number of characters in the novel seek to create a kind of artistic legacy, a record to capture what they think and experience in the catastrophe, from Mrs. Nesbitt’s photographs, to Matt’s sketches, to Miranda’s diary entries. Miranda’s mother, however, creates a different sort of legacy. She’d spent her career as an author prior to these disasters, yet the legacy she seeks to create has nothing to do with art. Knowing the unlikelihood of her whole family surviving, she chooses to make sure her children have a greater chance of living by eating less food. She sees her children as the legacy that will stay behind in the world, and sacrifices herself for that cause.

Actively choosing not to leave a legacy is another possibility in the story. Mrs. Nesbitt burns her journals and letters before she dies so that no one is tempted to read them – in destroying her legacy she erases her pain and suffering from the world. Mrs. Nesbitt’s action leads Miranda to question her own purpose for writing her journal. Is it boredom? Is she writing for a future reader? Does she believe that there will be a future with readers who could learn from her experiences? Ultimately Miranda decides that she’s writing the journal for herself, to document what’s she’s endured so that she can look back. This decision comes from a place of hope, because it’s based on Miranda’s belief that she will survive.

As characters are stripped of their opportunities to create futures, the records they leave behind become increasingly personally important. But, with the uncertainty of the times in which they live, it is also clear that there’s no way to ensure that what they leave behind will ever be considered, and no way to govern the way in which it is interpreted. Thus the act of leaving a legacy, as presented by the novel, is less about creating a record for those who follow, and more of a way of creating a personal record for the present, as a way of processing experiences as they occur.

Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…

Legacy ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Legacy appears in each chapter of Life as We Knew It. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
How often theme appears:
chapter length:
Get the entire Life as We Knew It LitChart as a printable PDF.
Life as We Knew It PDF

Legacy Quotes in Life as We Knew It

Below you will find the important quotes in Life as We Knew It related to the theme of Legacy.
Chapter 2 Quotes

Sometimes when Mom is getting ready to write a book she says she doesn’t know where to start, that the ending is so clear to her that the beginning doesn’t seem important anymore. I feel that way now only I don’t know what the ending is, not even what the ending is tonight.

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker), Laura Evans
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

One thing Matt did say to me was that no matter what the future is, we’re living through a very special time in history. He says that history makes us who we are, but we can make history also, and that anyone can be a hero, if they just choose to be.

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker), Matt Evans
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“I’m the one not caring. I’m the one pretending the earth isn’t shattering all around me because I don’t want it to be... I don’t want anything more to be afraid of. I didn’t start this diary for it to be a record of death.”

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker)
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

I write stuff down in here and I don’t read it. Things are bad enough without having to remind myself of just how bad things are.
But I just read what I wrote a couple of days ago. All about how wonderful school is and all that crap. Tests. Whoo-whoo. Report cards. Whoo-whoo. The future. Biggest whoo-whoo of them all.

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker)
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

I’ve never really thought about what it would be like to be an old woman. Of course nowadays I’m not sure I’ll live long enough to be any kind of woman.
But I hope when I get closer to death, however old I might be, that I can face it with courage and good sense the way Mrs. Nesbitt does. I hope that’s a lesson I’ve truly learned.

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker), Mrs. Nesbitt
Page Number: 234
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

“If we all die, you’ll leave,” I said. “Because you’ll be strong enough to. And maybe someplace in America or Mexico or somewhere things are better and you’ll manage to get there. And then Mom’s life and Matt’s and mine won’t have been a waste.”

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker), Matt Evans, Jonny Evans, Laura Evans
Page Number: 273
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

Do people ever realize how precious life is? I know I never did before. There was always time. There was always a future.
Maybe because I don’t know anymore if there is a future, I’m grateful for the good things that have happened to me this year.

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker)
Page Number: 287
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

I don’t even know why I’m writing this down, except that I feel fine and maybe tomorrow I’ll be dead. And if that happens, and someone should find my journal, I want them to know what happened.

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker)
Page Number: 299
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

I’d left a record. People would know I had lived. That counted for a lot.

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker)
Page Number: 330
Explanation and Analysis:

But today, when I am 17 and warm and well fed, I’m keeping this journal for myself so that I can always remember life as we knew it, life as we know it, for a time when I am no longer in the sunroom.

Related Characters: Miranda Evans (speaker)
Page Number: 337
Explanation and Analysis: