63 pages • 2-hour read
The Lake of Lost Girls
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Symbols & Motifs
Doll’s Eye Lake
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and graphic violence.
Doll’s Eye Lake functions as a multifaceted symbol that evolves throughout the narrative, reflecting the psychological transformation of characters and the gradual unveiling of truth. Initially, the lake represents an innocent father-daughter connection, as Jess recalls: “Dad would bring me to the lake when I was little. We’d take our small orange paddle boat out to the center, fishing gear propped between us” (106). These memories establish the lake as a place of childhood nostalgia and familial bonding.
However, the lake’s symbolic meaning darkens as the narrative progresses. Its very name suggests something unsettling: “Most people had no idea the pretty plant [doll’s eye] was, in fact, incredibly poisonous” (106). This duality mirrors the deceptive nature of relationships, particularly between Jess and Ben, foreshadowing the toxic relationship beneath their seemingly loving bond. The link to dolls, stereotypically a girl’s toy, also hints at the dark side of growing up female in a world of predatory men, as well as the associated rage that may simmer beneath a veneer of femininity. The lake accumulates further symbolic weight through local folklore: “In Mt. Randall, adults whispered of bodies wrapped in cloth and weighed down by bricks at the bottom of Doll’s Eye Lake” (106). This foreshadowing reveals how the lake symbolizes a community’s subconscious awareness of hidden atrocities.
Most significantly, the lake becomes a literal repository for buried secrets, housing the remains of multiple victims. When Lieutenant Higgins states, “I believe it’s only a matter of time until we find the others. It’s my opinion that whoever did this put them all in the same place” (118), the lake transforms into a symbol of reckoning—a place where truth can no longer remain submerged. The author employs this symbol to illustrate how even the most carefully concealed crimes eventually surface, just as “the recent heavy rain brought the bones to the surface, where they’d been buried for the past two decades” (3-4). The lake ultimately symbolizes the inevitability of revelation as part of the novel’s project of Exposing the Duality Between Appearance and Reality.
Jess’s Plaid Blanket
The blue-and-green plaid blanket symbolically charts the corruption of innocence and family bonds, functioning as a tangible connection between past and present. Originally representing maternal love and familial connection, the blanket was crafted by Jess’s grandmother during Cara’s pregnancy: “My mother made the knitted wool throw when I was pregnant with Jess” (225). This origin story establishes the blanket as a symbol of intergenerational love, expectation, and family continuity.
The blanket’s symbolic significance intensifies when Cara reveals that Jess was “wrapped […] in that blue-and-green blanket when [the Fadleys] brought her home from the hospital” (226), illustrating its role in cradling new life and innocence. In Jess’s college dorm room, the blanket continues to represent a connection to home, as Lindsey observes in a photograph: “I could see a messy bed behind her with a plaid blanket draped across it” (54). This visual connects Jess’s childhood to her emerging adult identity, symbolizing how she carries her family history with her.
The blanket’s symbolic meaning undergoes a sinister transformation when it’s discovered wrapped around Tammy Estep’s remains. The revelation comes during a news report: “There was a close-up of a decomposed blanket the reporter stated had been wrapped around Tammy’s body. There were only scraps left, but it was obvious that at one time it had been a colorful plaid pattern of blue and green” (201). Cara’s immediate recognition of the throw creates a symbolic link between Jess and murder, foreshadowing her identity as Tammy, Phoebe, and Meghan’s killer.
This transformation of the blanket from a symbol of maternal care to one of death and concealment reflects the novel’s broader themes of corrupted relationships. The author employs this symbolism to illustrate how objects associated with comfort and protection can be perverted when family dynamics become toxic, often due to The Corrosive Nature of Secrets and Deception. The blanket ultimately symbolizes Jess’s moral corruption, providing physical evidence of how her trauma led her to inflict suffering on others.
Hidden Spaces
A motif of hidden spaces systematically reinforces the theme of buried secrets and repressed trauma. Concealed locations—physical manifestations of psychological suppression—reveal how characters hide both objects and truths. Jess’s sealed bedroom functions as the first significant hidden space, preserved exactly as she left it yet inaccessible to most family members. Lindsey approaches this forbidden territory with trepidation: “I went in, stopping once I reached the middle of the room, almost too frightened to move. Panic unfurled in my gut and I felt a cold breeze on my bare arms even though the windows were closed” (120). This reaction illustrates how hidden spaces, like secrets, generate both fear and compulsive curiosity.
The wall cavity in Jess’s closet represents a more intimate concealed space, holding items deliberately hidden from parental scrutiny. When Lindsey discovers it, she finds grade reports, letters about academic probation, and compromising photographs. This cavity symbolically contains Jess’s true identity—the aspects of herself she kept hidden from her family. It illustrates how individuals compartmentalize shameful secrets and how discovering these secrets can fundamentally alter perceptions of loved ones.
The garage emerges as the novel’s most significant hidden space, containing both Ben’s yellow Mustang and the boat housing Jess’s remains. Its description emphasizes decay and neglect: “The garage was piled high with decades’ worth of family clutter packed into plastic tubs, and bags” (265). This space represents the ultimate burial ground for family secrets, with Jess’s corpse literally shrouded beneath layers of concealment: “I wrapped my sweet Jess in some plastic sheeting […] I secured it tightly with duct tape and then I put her in the bottom of the boat” (305). This hidden space conceals not only Jess’s body but also Ben’s guilt. By repeatedly employing this motif of hidden spaces, the novel thus creates a narrative architecture that mirrors the psychological processes of repression and denial central to the characters’ experiences.
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