47 pages • 1 hour read
M.L. StedmanThe Light Between Oceans
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 30-34Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3
Chapter 30 Summary
Violet coaxes Isabel out of the house to run an errand, and they encounter Hannah, Gwen, and Grace. The child runs to Isabel, and the two cling to each other. While Hannah tries to extract Grace, she realizes the enormous consequences of Tom and Isabel’s initial decision to keep her daughter and Tom’s decision to confess. Isabel and Grace have shared thousands of embraces and now theirs is a “love usurped.” Isabel does nothing to help.
Knuckey reflects on the situation and the Anzac Day mob that started the trouble and drove Frank to a desperate move. He acknowledges that it would have only made things worse to point out the connection between a town’s unjust attitude towards one innocent man and the current situation.
Spragg gets his chance to question Tom about killing Frank Roennfeldt, noting that many men came back from the war unstable. Tom points out that it does not make sense for him to confess to taking Lucy but to lie about killing Frank. Spragg remains skeptical.
Chapter 31 Summary
After running into Isabel in town, any progress that Hannah has made with Grace disappears. Gwen concocts a secretive plan to alleviate the child’s pain. She takes the girl for a walk, calls her Lucy, and brings her to the park bench where Isabel has been spending her days alone. She permits the two to spend some time together. She asks Isabel to be patient and tells her that Hannah is a good woman who has been through a lot. Isabel fights her urge to snatch the child back, pinning her hopes on Gwen’s promise to try and bring her again.
Grace accidentally spills the secret to Hannah, who confronts Gwen. Gwen says she thinks Hannah should give the girl back to Isabel, for the child’s sake, and for Hannah’s. Grace listens from the next room as Hannah declares that Grace will never see Isabel again.
Tom continues to take full responsibility for everything that happened and convinces Knuckey to let him write to Isabel. Isabel, in her anger, puts the letter in a drawer, unread.
Tom’s committal hearing is in four days. He tells his lawyer that twenty years in prison for pleading guilty is nothing compared to the war. His lawyer says he better pray that Spragg does not increase the charges once they get to Albany.
Chapter 32 Summary
Hannah visits Tom in prison, wanting an explanation for why he did what he did. To spare Isabel, he refuses to explain, only asserting that he did not kill Frank. He asks Hannah to show Isabel mercy.
He worries about Isabel’s unresponsiveness, but he tries to think the best of her, to think of her as the person he knew her to be.
Isabel contemplates kidnapping Grace and running away to Perth. In the next scene, a constable comes to the Graysmarks’ home explaining that Grace has gone missing. He searches the home of Isabel’s parents but doesn’t find her.
Chapter 33 Summary
Grace has run away in the hope of finding Isabel. She heads for the lighthouse, as Tom had always told her to do if she became lost. A search is conducted. Eventually, Knuckey finds her fast asleep, but safe.
Tom comes to terms with his likely death, and he reflects on the beauty of the world—the joy of the light, of Janus, of Lucy, and the old Isabel.
Chapter 34 Summary
Isabel visits Ralph and, at long last, she tells the truth about her role in keeping the baby. Ralph encourages her to speak up for Tom, reminding her of Tom’s love for her and of the serious penalties he could face.
Just as Isabel is about to leave to confess to Knuckey, Hannah appears at her door and tells Isabel that “[i]f you swear to me now that this was all your husband’s doing […] then I’ll let Grace come to live with you” (366). Without hesitation, Isabel swears.
Isabel is torn between Hannah’s promise, Ralph’s entreaty, and her own lies. She finally reads Tom’s letter, which professes his regret at the pain he caused, his need to do the right thing, his gratitude for the joy Isabel brought to him, his love for her, and his acceptance of whatever she decides to do.
Isabel, sobbing, comes to a decision.
Chapters 30-34 Analysis
As Isabel, Tom, and Hannah all grapple with moral dilemmas, the child Grace is learning to live with loss and grief. These two important themes intersect repeatedly in these chapters, demonstrating the complexities of the human experience and the confusing nature of emotions and relationships. The irony of Hannah’s loss is also jarring; she has regained her child in a physical sense, but Grace’s rejection of her biological mother brings Hannah pain. She sees her daughter suffering for the loss of Isabel, who has developed a maternal bond with Grace based on a lie and an act of thievery.
Isabel, who tends to try to manage fate and to impose her free will on nature, finds herself with the power to determine Tom’s fate. Suddenly, Isabel is more powerful than nature and destiny, and with only a few words, she can send Tom to his death or absolve him of a crime he did not commit. This role reversal is ironic; to some readers, Tom is a character deserving of sympathy, but to others, Tom is a weak man who deserves all of the heartache he must endure while imprisoned. Isabel is consistent in her acts of selfishness and wrongdoing; she answers only to herself, while Tom struggles to answer to himself, to his wife, and to the order of the world that he has come to know.
