Key Themes
As James got older himself, the deaths of his relatives and friends—especially his sister Alice James and fellow-novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson—began to turn his thoughts to how the "waves sweep dreadfully over the dead—they drop out and their names are unuttered." His Notebooks show this idea crystallizing into the story of a man who would make an actual private religion of remembrance of his dead.
But the story is far from a morbid, obsessive essay on death. The relationship between Stransom and his fellow-worshipper shows how forgiveness and love can overcome the wrongs of the past. The story is a parable for the living even more than an homage to the dead.
Read more about this topic: The Altar Of The Dead
Famous quotes containing the words key and/or themes:
“Japanese mothers credit “effort” as the key determinant of a child’s achievement in school, while American mothers name “ability” as the more important factor.”
—Perry Garfinkel (20th century)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)