53 pages • 1-hour read
The Hypnotist's Love Story
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Symbols & Motifs
Ellen’s House
Ellen’s house symbolizes the life changes she is going through as she enters a new relationship and confronts The Complexities of Family Dynamics. The house belonged to her grandparents, and is especially comforting to Ellen because it provides a link with those nurturing figures of her past. They continued their support, in a financial sense, by gifting her the house, which grants her a place to live. The access to the beach and the light-filled space suggest natural beauty and serenity imbue Ellen’s life, creating balance and pleasure.
Ellen feels unsettled when Patrick and Jack move into her house, as she feels that they upset the balance of her harmonious routine. Her resentment of Patrick’s boxes and her occasional longing to be alone in a quiet home reinforce the sense that Ellen is having to adjust to a new familial and domestic dynamic, with her house becoming a shared space instead of her own independent haven. Her uncertainty over sharing her space with Patrick and Jack reflects the deeper uncertainties she feels over the future of her relationship with Patrick.
In the final chapter, when Ellen is gazing out the window watching her husband and children play on the beach, the contentment she feels is made possible by the integration of past and present, as symbolized by the house, which has, like her, adapted to the new changes.
Patrick’s Boxes
Patrick’s boxes symbolize the baggage from his old life that he is bringing into his new life with Ellen. While he warns Ellen she will have to accept Saskia into their lives, Ellen doesn’t get warning about the very many things that Patrick is holding onto. Some of them make sense to her, like the photo albums filled with pictures of his wife. Others, like boxes of old clothes and miscellaneous items, just look like clutter to her. This suggests that Ellen feels Patrick has some work to do to sort out what he might need to leave behind or let go of in order to be ready for a new relationship. In another respect, Patrick’s boxes serve as metaphors for the doubts that Ellen occasionally feels about whether she is making the right choice. The physical presence of the boxes in the entryway of her house signify the obstacles she might encounter with new people in her living space.
The boxes become the focal point of Ellen’s ethical struggle over how to handle the relaxation sessions that she conducts with Patrick, too. When Patrick at last decides to move the boxes, she attributes his motivations to the suggestions she planted during these sessions, rather than to her repeated requests. Whatever the motivation, Patrick’s removal of the boxes comes on the same day he accompanies Ellen to the ultrasound, suggesting that he is at last ready to fully settle in and move forward with their new family unit.
Saskia’s Marble
Saskia’s marble begins as a symbol of how her life has changed since her relationship with Patrick ended, invoking The Difficulties of Losing a Relationship. She initially reflects that, when she lost her marble, she lost all her luck. The marble is a big, old-fashioned marble that belonged to Saskia’s father. Since he died young and Saskia didn’t know him, this makes the marble something of an heirloom and a keepsake for her.
Patrick understood that Saskia had attributed luck to this item, and he took it with him on his first meeting with a client for his new Scott Surveying company. Jack, too, subscribed to the marble being lucky, and wanted to show to his friends. When Jack loses the marble, and Saskia leaves shortly thereafter, Jack believes the loss of the marble caused the loss of Saskia in his life. For Saskia, too, the lost marble represents all the losses she undergoes.
Saskia’s marble has a parallel in the white stone Ellen finds on the beach and keeps as a kind of talisman in her office, privately calling it her “wellness stone.” Just as Saskia attributed powers to the marble, Ellen thinks of this stone as attached to her own journey of self-awareness and love. She feels a moment of anxiety when she sees Patrick at one point playing with this stone, tossing it into the air, and she notes later that he didn’t replace it. This moment represents Ellen’s fear that she might end up like Saskia and be abandoned by Patrick.
At the end of the book, when Jack sends a get-well card to Saskia and encloses a marble as a gift, this gesture of reparation becomes part of the recognition Saskia needs to heal. His apology for losing her marble demonstrates that Jack, too, missed the relationship that he and Saskia had. Moreover, Jack’s gesture is accompanied by Maureen’s card, which contains the acknowledgement that Saskia was an important and positive influence on Jack. While the marble doesn’t replace Saskia’s luck, it does mark a turning point in her journey toward healing as she cries over the card and then, later, is able to let go of her love for Patrick at last. The returned marble marks the restoration of her sense of self-esteem and coping abilities, so she can create her own luck.
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