45 pages • 1 hour read
Bess Streeter AldrichA Lantern in Her Hand
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1928A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Introduction-Chapter 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary
Cedartown, Nebraska, is introduced as the setting of this novel. It is characterized by its tumultuous weather, which alternates between droughts and “dreary rain,” although it also provides clear, beautiful days. Abbie Deal is one of the oldest people in Cedartown and can remember the changes Cedartown has been through. Abbie dies alone in bed, and her children worry that she was miserable at the end. One of Abbie’s grandchildren, Laura, believes that Abbie died peacefully, thinking about all her memories.
Chapter 1 Summary
The narrative turns back in time to 1854, when Abbie Deal was eight-year-old Abbie Mackenzie. Abbie travels to a new home with her family in Iowa, except for her father, who has been dead for two years. Abbie’s father came from landed gentry in Scotland but lost all his money. Their mother, an Irish immigrant, tried to hold onto a few precious belongings she could pass down to her daughters; Abbie dreams of being a lady like her ancestors.
Chapter 2 Summary
The family makes it to Cedar Falls in their covered wagon. As they unpack their belongings, Abbie finds a small chest with the last remaining finery of their aristocratic background. She plays with the jewelry and fan, fantasizing about being a lady. Her siblings interrupt her, frightened because they’ve been warned of an Indigenous raid. In response, Abbie hides in the chest.
Chapter 3 Summary
The community flees together, hiding and preparing defenses for a battle against the local Indigenous group. On their way out, Abbie meets a neighbor boy named Will Deal, who is forced to leave his beloved baby deer behind. The battle never ensues, so they all return to Cedar Falls. The summer is beautiful and Abbie has a good time collecting flowers and meeting the other children while her family builds a log cabin. Her older sister, who is married, gives birth. However, something is wrong with the baby, and it dies shortly after its birth. Abbie is devastated and blames God for creating death.
Chapter 4 Summary
The narrative flashes forward a couple of years. Abbie is now 11 years old. As Abbie gets older, she takes on more chores and responsibilities at home. Abbie has still retained her fantasy life; she escapes into her active imagination while doing her chores. Will Deal’s deer grows up and is shot down by a stranger.
Will and Abbie develop a friendship that deepens as Abbie gets older. Will is given responsibility over the family farm as his father travels for work. His father is an old friend of Abraham Lincoln, who has just been elected President of the United States. There is tension about state borders. When Abbie turns 14 years old, war breaks out.
Chapter 5 Summary
Abbie’s brother, brother-in-law, and many young male neighbors enlist and go to war. Only Will stays behind because he is the only man in his family who can take care of everyone. Will is ashamed of not going to war. Abbie, now 16, helps him feel better by confiding her own secrets to him, mainly about her desire to become “a big person” (45) when she grows up. The neighbors are surprised that Will and Abbie become confidants.
Doc Matthews offers Will $500 to take his son Ed’s place in the draft. Will gives the money to his mother so she can hire help for the farm and kisses Abbie goodbye before going to war. With Will gone and Ed back from university, Ed starts flirting with Abbie. Abbie finds him good-looking but can’t stop thinking about Will. Abbie goes out alone into a field to let her dress open a bit and sing to her heart’s content. Ed finds her and grabs her, starting to kiss and touch her. Ed then asks her to marry him. While there are things Abbie likes about Ed, she’s heard rumors that he drinks a lot, and she wasn’t comfortable with him touching her after he found her singing. Abbie asks her mother for help, and her mother tells her that only Abbie can figure out what it means to be in love.
Chapter 6 Summary
Will’s father goes to visit him. Will is doing okay, but he misses home and is accused of having stolen provisions. Will asks about how Abbie is doing, and when Abbie finds out about this, it makes her miss him even more.
A new reverend from Vermont named Ezra Whitman arrives in town with his wife. His wife is a painter and gives Abbie lessons, but she notes that Abbie’s real talent is her voice. Abbie agrees to marry Ed so he can fund her trip to New York to study with a voice coach. But when Will returns from the war, Abbie is filled with love and happiness. She begs Will not to let her marry Ed, and they tell one another how in love they are.
Chapter 7 Summary
In 1865, Abbie and Will get married, and Abbie’s mother gives her a string of pearls from their trove of heirlooms. Abbie still imagines being wealthy one day and wearing the pearls, but she feels she doesn’t need them because she’s so happy.
Introduction-Chapter 7 Analysis
In A Lantern in Her Hand, the setting is important to the tone, mood, and development of the novel. In the Introduction, Abbie is introduced in parallel with her setting of Cedartown. Cedartown is characterized as being “neither effete nor distinctive, nor is it even particularly pleasing to the passing tourist. It is beautiful only in the eyes of those who live here” (11). The connection between the beauty of the land to those who live there and the significance of Abbie’s memories emphasize that Abbie has been formatively developed through her environment. Setting is therefore important not just as a source of imagery to celebrate the beauty of the American Midwest, but also as a metaphor for Abbie’s character development.
Abbie is characterized like the land around her: Beautiful but tough, expansive but definable, both Abbie and Cedartown are symbols of The Pioneer Spirit that helps shape the American identity of this era. Using foreshadowing, Aldrich characterizes Abbie through her heritage, a legacy that helps her character face challenges but also raises contradictions. She identifies with her Scottish aristocratic heritage on her father’s side and dreams of becoming a lady, but the reality of her life puts her much closer to her Irish immigrant mother’s side. Her family is impoverished, and they have few luxuries left from their wealthy life. The narrative describes her as having “the physical attributes of the peasant and the mental ones of the aristocrat, […] a song upon her lips and a lantern in her hand” (24). Both sets of attributes help her on her journey to adulthood. This characterization also identifies Abbie with the title of the novel, further emphasizing the importance of her character development as a model of fortitude and grit, but also of beauty and softness.
The first seven chapters emphasize the hardships of pioneer life. As much as Abbie can find pockets of happiness in her life, such as through her singing, the novel highlights the challenges faced by early pioneer Americans. For example, Will Deal’s deer is a symbol of loss and the importance of not becoming too emotionally attached to anything. For Will, his deer is like a pet, but it is an animal that is easy to kill and hunt. Therefore, when Will loses his deer, he loses a piece of his innocence. Another challenge to pioneer life is the constant warfare between Indigenous tribes, who are the land’s original settlers, and the pioneers, who seek to create their society on that land. All these challenges are further complicated by the American Civil War, which takes many men away from home and puts women like Abbie in a vulnerable situation. These conflicts are important in developing a patriotic tone throughout the novel. By highlighting the myriad issues faced by Americans in the 19th century, Aldrich honors the foundations of American culture as stalwart, proud, and meaningful.
Aldrich’s novel is also Abbie’s coming-of-age story. One important life lesson that Abbie learns is how little control she has over the world around her: “It seemed that life was doing something to her which she could not countenance. She had a queer sensation of wind blowing past her,—of wind that she could not stop” (45). The blowing wind is a metaphor for life’s turbulence; there will be many external challenges that Abbie can’t control, just like she can’t control the weather. This becomes an especially helpful lesson when the Civil War takes away many of Abbie’s loved ones.
Abbie’s story is also a love story. The mood of happiness and romance that defines her relationship with Will is important in providing layers of lightness and positivity to a novel that explores many of the difficulties of pioneer life. By marrying Will and not Ed, Abbie places true love and her moral values ahead of her ambitions and desires. This introduces the theme of The Importance of Family. By falling in love with Will, Abbie learns that material items are not as important as emotional depth. Abbie’s commitment to family over herself is seen as part of the pioneer woman’s role in the 19th century. At the same time, Abbie is also truly in love with Will, making her decision to marry him over Ed a foreshadowing of future happiness in family and love—a happiness that helps her endure hardship.
