The Lock Artist

Although Mike never displays willingness to discuss his childhood trauma and its aftereffects in clinical terms (and even openly resists a therapeutic approach to his trauma), trauma and coping loom large as themes in the novel. The foundation of Mike’s character is his childhood trauma, and his most notable features—his muteness and his obsession with locks—are obvious coping mechanisms (see Symbols & Motifs section), although he never acknowledges them as such. When Mike is discussing his treatment after the incident, he expresses hostility toward the “psychologists and counselors” who were always “poking at” him (35). He scoffs, “I wasn’t repressed,” and describes his stubborn unwillingness to cooperate with suggested therapeutic approaches to processing his trauma (35). His statement in Chapter 1 that his memory of the incident is “[l]ocked up here inside [him],” however, demonstrates that he has some awareness—even if it is not explicit or conscious—that his muteness is a sign of emotional repression (2).

Furthermore, one of Mike’s primary means of bonding with Amelia is over their common experience of having survived traumatic childhood events—for Amelia, the suicide of her mother. Even before they meet in person, when Mike hears about Amelia’s mother’s death, he is drawn to the idea of “[s]omeone who had been through at least some of the same things I had been” (104). In one of Mike’s early comic strips for Amelia, he writes, “If only she knew how much we have in common…” (146). In response, Amelia writes in her comic, “If he can talk to anybody, it should be me” (149). Amelia’s firsthand understanding of trauma makes her the only person with whom Mike feels comfortable being vulnerable, and in the final chapter, he expresses optimism that one day she might help him overcome his muteness. This very expression of hope signifies a crucial development that occurs over the course of the novel: Mike softens his obstinacy about his muteness and expresses a desire to heal from his trauma.