Great and Precious Things

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and death.

Several characters in Great and Precious Things grapple with choice, both in the choices that they’ve made and the ones they face. Yarros explores choice and free will as an important component of being human. Instead of focusing on the right or wrong of these choices, she instead emphasizes the value of having the freedom to choose.

The novel’s primary conflict in the novel—Arthur’s desire to have a DNR order in place—highlights the importance of personal choice and free will. For Xander, his decision not to allow his father to have a DNR stems from the fact that he doesn’t want to think about or encourage his father’s death. While his opinion is respectable, he fails to understand that it isn’t about whether his father wants to die or not; instead, it’s about his father’s right to choose. Judge Wilson encapsulates this idea best in her ruling: “The ability to control what happens to our flesh and to choose our future is the core of our personhood. Free will is the most precious of our possessions, and to lose it is a tragedy to which there is no equal” (327).