Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Still Alice, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ambition and Success
Loss of Identity
Illness, Marriage, and Family
Alzheimer’s, Quality of Life, and Happiness
Summary
Analysis
John and Alice get ice cream cones and sit down to eat them together. John asks her if she knows what month it is and Alice knows it’s spring but hasn’t looked at a calendar in a long time, so she’s unable to answer him. John asks her about Anna’s birthday, but she isn’t able to answer that either. Alice looks at a building across the river and asks what it is. John tells her it’s part of Harvard and asks if she remembers which building is hers, but she doesn’t remember. Instead, Alice asks why they don’t “focus on the things that really matter,” but John tells her that’s what he’s trying to do.
John’s questions are meant to gauge how much Alice remembers and to what degree she’s kept her self-awareness. Alice, not recognizing this, believes he is only asking questions that don’t “really matter.”
Themes
John asks Alice if she “still want[s] to be here.” Alice recognizes that this question is important to him and she’s happy that she can provide a real answer. She says, “Yes, I like sitting here with you.” She asks if they need to leave, but John tells her she can “take [her] time.”
The reason for John’s earlier questions becomes obvious: he is trying to figure out whether or not she is capable of really knowing what she wants before asking her if she wants to stay in Cambridge or move to New York with him. When Alice says she like “sitting here with you,” she does, on some level, mean she likes being with him and wants him around, but what John understands is that she just likes being in Cambridge, ignoring the part that she likes him to be with her. This, to him, confirms that she will be happier if he leaves her in Cambridge with their children.
Themes
