45 pages • 1 hour read
Fran LittlewoodAmazing Grace Adams
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Cake
Content Warning: This section references the death of a child.
The central action of the novel revolves around Grace Adams’s attempts to procure a birthday cake for her daughter’s 16th birthday party. Grace and Lotte have been estranged for several months, and Grace believes that if she collects and delivers the Love Island cake to her daughter, she can repair their broken relationship. Grace sees the cake as a symbol of hope and possibility: a way to tangibly prove her love for her daughter and to apologize and atone for betraying her.
All of Grace’s actions and decisions throughout the narrative present reflect her desire to deliver Lotte’s cake. She gets upset in the novel’s opening scene because she realizes the traffic jam will delay getting the cake and attending Lotte’s party. Her intolerance with others throughout her travels indicates her attachment to the cake, which she increasingly sees as her only means of controlling her circumstances. The more that threatens the cake, the more Grace feels the frustration of her broader powerlessness.
Although the cake is squashed by the time Grace reaches Lotte’s party, it does repair the two characters’ relationship. The cake reminds Lotte of her mother’s love and provides Grace and Lotte with an organic avenue for conversation.
iCloud Photos
Grace’s iCloud photos are a coping mechanism: The more frustrated that Grace gets in the narrative present, the more frequently she studies them. The iCloud holds physical documentation of Bea’s life and Lotte’s childhood. Therefore, Grace opens the images and footage whenever she needs to calm down. However, the photos are also a portal into her painful past. As the Interconnection Between the Past and the Present becomes more apparent, the photos appear more frequently on the page.
Grace knows that the iCloud photos will awaken her painful memories but remains attached to them anyway. In Chapter 19, Grace “pulls her phone from her pocket and she’s clicking on iCloud, finding the clip because it’s like everything is against her today. She’s losing the will to go on and this is her opium, her secret shameful fix” (73). The photos are like a drug to Grace in that they both reignite and relieve her pain. The photos keep Grace from authentically healing from her past. Grace cannot let go of the past because it is always with her in contained and curated form.
Little Boy
The little boy on the scooter whom Grace encounters in Chapter 19 symbolizes Grace’s trauma. Grace has tried to compartmentalize her loss ever since Bea’s death. However, when she runs into the little boy on the scooter, he triggers memories of her daughter Bea’s death. The little boy is a metaphoric resurrection of Grace’s trauma: Seeing him reawakens her sorrow, fear, and remorse.
Paper Lanterns
After Bea dies, Grace and Ben light 29 paper lanterns in her memory. Each lantern represents one month that Bea was alive. The lanterns are a symbolic representation of loss and grief.
Grace’s inability to light a lantern at Bea’s memorial conveys her inarticulable distress. While attempting to light the match, Grace tells herself, “This is for Bea. I have to do this for Bea” (222), but her desperation does not make the match work. Her struggle suggests the way in which her guilt and sorrow encompass her. Grace wants to grieve in the way everyone expects her to. Her loss, however, takes an unpredictable shape.
Polyglot Competition
When Grace wins the polyglot competition at 28 years old, she feels accomplished and authenticated. Therefore, the competition represents Grace’s youthful, independent identity. Winning the competition validates Grace and helps her to believe in herself.
Allusions to the polyglot competition pervade both the narrative past and the narrative present. Grace’s recurring memories of the competition evoke her sorrow over her present circumstances. She is no longer young or employed, and she no longer feels strong, capable, or accomplished. The competition is a representation of the person Grace thought she was that develops the theme of Aging as a Form of Loss.
