Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in When Will There Be Good News?, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma, Survival, and Reckoning with the Past
Appearances vs. Reality
Lies and Deceptions
Family
Summary
Analysis
Now that Reggie has found Jackson, she’s keeping vigil by his bedside, “Greyfriars Reggie.” Reggie convinces the attending doctor that she’s Jackson’s daughter. She and Jackson chat and get to know one another a bit. While she’s in the hospital, she leaves a note attached to Sadie’s collar outside so that nobody mistakes her for a stray. She decides that Jackson seems like “an okay sort of person.”
“Greyfriars Reggie” is a reference to the story of a dog in 19th-century Edinburgh, Greyfriars Bobby, who is said to have spent 14 years guarding the grave of his owner in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Reggie embodies that kind of tenacity and faithfulness, too. She’s driven to watch over those she cares about, much like Jackson and Louise.
Themes
When Reggie comes out of the hospital, Sadie wags a greeting, and Reggie feels “something very like happiness.” She’d told Jackson that she’ll come back. “Reggie was never going to be a person who didn’t come back.” On the bus, though, she gets the call that Ms. MacDonald’s remains are still “unavailable.” Reggie feels empty and panicky again. She wonders where Dr. Hunter is.
Sadie and Jackson seem to constitute a makeshift, substitute family for Reggie—it’s the first time in the story that she feels something akin to happiness. When she’s reminded of her obligation to Ms. MacDonald, however, she feels very much like an abandoned child once again.
Themes
