67 pages 2 hours read

In A Dark Dark Wood

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015

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Symbols & Motifs

Glass House

Flo’s aunt’s house, known as the Glass House, is the setting for the hen do, where most of the events of the novel take place. Post-modern, with many large windows, it seems out of place in the natural setting of the woods, metaphorically like how Nora feels out of place among the other party guests. Both Nora and Tom comment on how they feel like the house is like a stage, with themselves actors performing for an audience outside the house. The characters are like actors in a play, one that Clare has assembled personally. She manipulates everyone into playing the roles she has laid out for them.

The house symbolizes the claustrophobic feeling and increasing sense of foreboding and foreshadowing of the narrative. The characters variously describe the house as feeling like a “stage set” (22), a “cage in a zoo” (63), and a “glass display case” (63). The transparency of the glass makes the characters feel that there is nowhere to hide. The woods outside the windows feel oppressive, and the house makes Nora feel as though someone is watching her. The narrative provides Nora’s unspoken impression that what occurs in the house will lead to some terrible eventuality, which happens when Flo shoots James.

Skeleton

The “traditional Halloween poem” at the very beginning of the story, from which the author derived the title of the novel, reads:

In a dark, dark wood there was a dark, dark house;
And in the dark, dark house there was a dark, dark room;
And in the dark, dark room there was a dark, dark cupboard;
And in the dark, dark cupboard there was …
A skeleton! (1)

The term “skeleton in the closet” refers to a secret, and there are many secrets in this story, which the author reveals in a slow burn, layer by layer. Nora has kept her past a secret for many years, as she made a new life for herself, in a new place. Much of the suspense in the story comes from Nora’s past, i.e., the skeletons in her closet, confronting her. Nora reveals her secrets as she realizes the true origins of the traumas of her past and how they connect to current tragic events.

Clare also has many secrets, or skeletons in her closet. Throughout the narrative, she labors to hide that she sent Nora the breakup text from James. Likewise, she sought to hide her conspiracy to kill James. In the end, Nora chooses to confront her trauma and expose Clare’s secrets.

Running

From the beginning of the story, Nora talks about how she is a runner. Going out for a run is an important part of her daily routine, and she feels uncomfortable when she is unable to do so. At the hen do, Nora runs to relieve her stress after the guests drag her past out in the open. Running as a means of escape symbolizes Nora’s attempts to hide her past and the traumatic situations she experienced: For a decade, she has sought to run from her past.

Nora runs into the woods, chasing Clare’s car, when she realizes that Clare switched the shotgun shells. Here she is running to save James, to make up for the time she metaphorically ran away from him and shut him out of her life. Nora is tempted to run when she hears a person enter the Glass House after she has returned to recover her memories, but she overcomes her instinctive feeling and stays. Finally, Nora runs from Clare at the end of the story, which symbolizes her running to the future, rather than away from the past.

Ouija Board

The Ouija board used at the hen party symbolizes the unknown and the mysterious, and it is an omen of James’s murder. The planchette spells the word “Mmmmmmuurderrrrrrrrrrrrrer,” surprising everyone and making them all very uneasy. The whole weekend felt off-balance and uncomfortable to the characters, particularly Nora, so this strange message truly brings a feeling of foreboding to the group.

Flo introduces the séance as a “fun” activity, but she takes it very seriously and is angry with the others when they jokingly write out messages. The Ouija board also symbolizes the difference shown between Flo and the others in personality and character.

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