Grief and Loss
It seems strange to say that if Claudia had grieved for Tom, she would not have felt such an paralyzing sense of loss her entire life after his death. Claudia does not grieve for Tom until she iis on her death bed and re-reads his diary; his words of love about her finally allow her to deal with his loss and her feelings of almost resentment that he left her behind when he died.
Claudia's life seems to be marked by loss. The first is the loss of her father, who dies when she is just a child. She also loses her brother a number of times in her life; he is the most important relationship in her life growing up, and her first romantic relationship. When they go to college she loses that bond. Later, when she is in a relationship with Jasper, of whom Gordon disapproves, she loses him again. Finally, she loses him for good when he dies before her, another example of a loss that she is unable to cope with.
The biggest loss in Claudia's life is that of Tom. She is involved in a passionate relationship with him, and he is the love of her life. She never gets over him. Lisa also experiences loss; she loses her mother when Claudia decides that she cannot mother Lisa adequately and hands her over to the care of her mother and "mother in law".
Renaissance Woman
Claudia is what would have been considered a Renaissance woman in that she is bold and independent before her time. She is in some ways a Feminist because she does not believe that she has to marry Jasper in order to have his child, and she does not have to be married just because she is a woman. She is capable and confident as she shows when she strikes out on her own as a war correspondent; she does not wait to be assigned a role or a posting but instead identifies a posting that she would like and goes after it. This is not the traditional female behavior of the time, which does not matter to Claudia. She is definitely her own person and she is not going to let social expectations hold her back.
Incest
The theme of incest centers around the relationship between Claudia and Gordon. They are friends their whole lives but when they become teens they find that they cannot relate to any other people their own age, aside from each other. Gordon finds girls his age vapid and silly; Claudia finds boys her age uninteresting and immature. They form a close bond that becomes sexual and cocoons them from the outside world. When they leave home for college, and finally make connections with outside friends, their sexual relationship comes to an abrupt halt. Surprisingly it does not affect their friendship as brother and sister moving forward throughout their lives and they remain close.
