62 pages • 2-hour read
The Bletchley Riddle
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
Willa’s Diary
Lizzie finds Willa’s diary when quickly gathering her and her mother’s things before leaving for Bletchley Park. With the threat of bombings looming, she’s unsure when—if ever—she’ll be able to return. She thus absconds with whatever important items she can carry. In Willa’s closet, Lizzie finds this diary, the first sign of Willa’s secrets. As Lizzie pursues the truth about Willa’s disappearance, the diary offers Lizzie and Jakob clues and allows them to piece together the mystery. They discover that Willa wants her diary back, and the children receive little direction or closure beyond that.
The diary thus symbolizes the lies and uncertainty in the relationship between Willa and her children, and The Burden of Secrets that they all feel as a result—particularly Lizzie, who begins studying the diary long before Jakob. Jakob and Lizzie eagerly investigate Willa’s code, but their frustration, loss, and confusion at the disappearance of their mother can’t be ignored.
Jakob’s Pipe
The pipe symbolizes Jakob’s complicated relationship with the memory of his father, similar to how Willa’s diary is representative of her dynamic with her children, particularly Lizzie.
Several times in the book, Jakob holds his late father’s smoking pipe despite not being able to light it properly. His inability to use it emphasizes that he keeps it around for sentimental purposes, not functional ones. It also shows a disconnect between him and the memory of his father. This is made clearer when Jakob dwells on the abruptness of the loss of his father and how powerfully it made Jakob never want to make himself emotionally vulnerable again. The problem with his behavior is that he becomes unable to fully confront or process his emotions, something that directly contrasts the optimistic and open-minded perspective of his father.
The Enigma Machine
The Enigma machine is at the center of the operations in Bletchley Park for some time. It is a cipher machine that helps encode communications between German forces, and the British government is struggling to break the codes. When Jakob describes the deceptively simple machine, he and his team calculate that there are over a billion potential codes the machine could create, making their task ahead feel impossible.
They never waver, though, despite the constant disappointment, thus making the machine a symbol of The Nature of Wartime Spirit. While cracking the code won’t end the war, it will give Allied forces a crucial advantage, so accomplishing their task despite the odds is how the people at Bletchley show their unbreakable patriotism and hope in the face of danger.
Unlock the meaning behind every key symbol & motif
See how recurring imagery, objects, and ideas shape the narrative.
- Explore how the author builds meaning through symbolism
- Understand what symbols & motifs represent in the text
- Connect recurring ideas to themes, characters, and events