58 pages • 1 hour read
Kristin HannahNight Road
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Power of Motherhood
Content warning: This section of the guide discusses child abuse and drug addiction.
A central theme developed in the novel is the power of motherhood. One of the ways Kristin Hannah develops this theme is by discussing the negative impact that mothers can have on their daughters. Because Lexi’s mom, Lorena, had substance use disorder and spent a lot of time incarcerated, Lexi grew up in foster care. This upbringing gives Lexi a negative self-image and makes her self-conscious about her past. She also feels abandoned. Jude likewise grows up with an absent mother, making her question why Caroline no longer loves her and won’t take care of her after her father’s death. Jude’s experience with her mother makes her fearful of becoming a mother, as she worries that she’ll be uncaring like Caroline, who “handled motherhood as if it were radioactive waste” (108). This histrionic language highlights the intensity of Jude’s feelings. The reference to waste juxtaposes with Jude’s maternal style of control and order.
Despite Lexi’s and Jude’s efforts, they ultimately find themselves in similar situations as their mothers. Lexi first feels this connection during her first night in prison. Lexi thinks of her mother on her bunk during the first night and says to herself: “Here I am, Mom. Just like you after all” (208). Hannah draws attention to the poignance of this because Lexi speaks in direct address to her mother, who is an absent figure in the novel. Lexi’s realization shows her disappointment in following the same path as her mom despite her efforts to do well in school and prepare for college. However, Hannah highlights the irony in Lexi’s statement, since Lexi went to prison because she did not fight the DUI charges as Scot suggested.
Jude likewise realizes that she turns into Caroline when she responds to the grief of losing Mia. There are occasions in the novel in which Miles has to remind Jude that she’s nothing like her mother, showing how concerned Jude is with being like her mother. However, once Mia dies, Jude withdraws into herself the same way that Caroline did when her husband died. Jude doesn’t realize this until Lexi forces her to see that she’s no longer the mom she once was. Jude makes this connection even more clearly when Caroline says that she would deny Lexi’s request for Jude to supervise her visits with Grace. Once Jude realizes that her desire to deny Lexi’s request aligns with what her mother would do, she understands that she has turned into her mother despite working so hard not to. By presenting two characters who attempt to break the cycle of the way they were mothered, Hannah highlights the power of motherhood to alter the course of someone’s life and create intergenerational challenges.
The fact that both Lexi and Jude realize that they’ve turned into their mothers connects the two characters and allows them to understand each other better. This understanding is essential for Hannah’s construction of the novel’s climax and falling action which shows women’s healing process and Lexi’s return to the Farraday family. Lexi is in recovery and resolves to be reunited with Grace. Likewise, Jude doesn’t want to be the disconnected, uncaring mother that Caroline is, so Jude works her way out of grief and reunites with her family. Jude also uses this experience to help her reconnect with Caroline, allowing both women to overcome their grief and strengthen their relationship. So, while Hannah spends much of the novel showing the harm that mothers can have on their children, Hannah also shows the redemptive power that comes from motherhood. Motherhood reunites Lexi with Grace and Zach and helps Lexi to overcome her guilt for Mia’s death, while it helps Jude to forgive Zach, Lexi, and herself for Mia’s death and reunites her family so that they can move forward together.
Forgiveness Versus Justice
Forgiveness and justice catalyze several of the characters’ development. After Mia’s death, Jude wants justice for her daughter, thinking that it will help her to overcome her loss. Jude feels that she receives justice when the judge sentences Lexi to five years in prison, yet during that time, she sinks further into a state of sadness and grief that completely changes her character. Likewise, the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving wants justice to help deter other teenagers from making the same choice Lexi did when she drove drunk. The community’s insistence on justice forces the county prosecutor to charge Lexi with DUI vehicular homicide and assault. In Night Road, therefore, Hannah explores the desire for justice in opposition to forgiveness, particularly during processes of grief and loss.
Forgiveness is presented as a healing balm for those characters willing to exercise it. At the trial, Miles tells Lexi that he forgives her and says to the judge that “[p]rison is no answer. It is just another tragedy, and there’s been enough of that” (203). Hannah’s use of the word "tragedy" draws attention to the literary conventions of tragedy (in which the protagonist’s suffering ends in sorrow) that forgiveness will ultimately prevent Night Road from adhering to. The novel suggests that Miles heals because he’s willing to forgive Lexi, Zach, and himself.
It isn’t until Jude forgives that she begins to grieve Mia’s death and heal her relationships. Hannah uses Zach as the catalyst for this development: Jude realizes the importance of forgiveness when she sees how Zach has changed through this process and how much guilt he still carries years after Mia’s death. Jude asks if Zach can forgive her for being an ineffective mother. He responds that there’s no need to forgive her, and Jude teaches: “That’s how we do it, Zach. We just…forgive” (371). Reflecting the time jumps in the novel that pass over the years between Lexi’s incarceration and Grace’s upbringing, this ellipsis captures the unspoken challenges of forgiveness and leads the novel towards its resolution that hinges upon forgiveness. This moment between mother and son is significant because it returns Jude to the role of mother: Jude is teaching about forgiveness after holding onto guilt and blame for so long. Hannah’s exploration of forgiveness equates healing with forgiveness rather than justice.
The Influence of Loss
Loss has an immense influence on the characters in Night Road. Lexi’s first experience with loss comes from her mother’s absence and death because of Lorena’s addiction. This loss profoundly affects Lexi, who grows up in the foster care system and jumps from family to family. As a result, Lexi feels that she doesn’t deserve love or stability and does her best to blend in with everyone else. When she first arrives at Eva’s trailer, Lexi fears further loss and thinks that Eva will give her up as her foster parents have. She says to Eva, “I’ll be good. I swear it. […] If you keep me, you won’t be sorry” (11). Hannah’s monosyllabic writing in this passage highlights the urgency and haste of Lexi’s promise. Likewise, when Lexi enters a relationship with Zach, she fears getting hurt and losing her connection with Mia and the Farraday family. Hannah portrays the influence of loss across Lexi’s full character arc; Lexi’s experience with loss in her youth has a lasting impact on her that continues after Grace’s birth. Indeed, Lexi’s experience of growing up without a mother impacts how she sees herself as a mother: She thinks that she won’t be a good mother to Grace.
Like Lexi, Jude is also profoundly impacted by loss, beginning with her father’s death outside the timeline of the novel. This event creates a distance between Jude and her mother that lasts for decades and only begins to heal once Jude overcomes her loss of Mia, which likewise has a significant impact on her. When Mia dies, Jude undergoes the most significant character development in the novel: She changes from a loving, involved wife and mother to a woman as distant and unfeeling as Caroline. Thus, Jude keeps her loved ones at arm’s length and doesn’t engage with them as she once did.
The influence of loss contributes to the structure of Part 2 of the novel. Because Jude and Lexi have experienced so much loss and allowed it to shape who they are, they have a long road to returning to the happy women they once were. Lexi overcomes her loss first by fighting to be present in Grace’s life. This inadvertently initiates Jude’s healing journey by forcing Jude to realize that she’s no longer the wife and mother she once was but could be again. When Jude realizes this and makes the changes necessary to be present with her family again, she’s better able to face Mia’s death and see it as an accident. The influence of loss hence structures both the deterioration and resolution of the characters’ journeys.
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