54 pages • 1-hour read
The Quiet Tenant
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Symbols & Motifs
“Rules for Staying Alive”
As part of her survival, “Rachel” develops for herself a set of rules to govern her conduct based on what has consistently kept her safe, and this serves as a motif for her resilience and tenacity. The first are called “Rules for Staying Alive in the Shed,” and the second, “Rules for Staying Alive Outside the Shed.” These sets of rules symbolize the degree to which “Rachel’s” cognition has shifted because of the trauma that she must continually endure. The rules allow her to exert a small measure of control and attempt to make sense of a terrifying and often unpredictable situation. While she has little control over her circumstances, “Rachel” can at least master her own mind; her thoughts are her own, and she has decided that she will not be defeated. Thus, she uses Aidan’s abnormal behavior against him, coding his reactions and reacting to his pathologies in ways that will allow her to survive her interactions with him.
When her limited world expands beyond the shed and she gains the opportunity to see him interacting with his daughter in his own environment, her set of rules likewise expands to accommodate this new dynamic. The rules for staying alive inside the shed are preestablished when “Rachel’s” character is first introduced, but because she modifies her survival rules considerably as the story unfolds, this inner strategy also serves a vital storytelling role, for each time she decides to add another rule to her list, the author delves more deeply into the protagonist’s thought processes as she determines the parameters that will direct her eventual escape.
The Basement
The basement of Aidan’s new rental house becomes the repository for all of his darkest and most incriminating secrets, and the “underground” nature of the location also serves to symbolize the surreptitious nature of his depravity. While living at his in-laws’ home with his wife and daughter, Aidan was protected by the size of the property and the privacy that its outbuildings afforded him. This remove from the gaze of prying eyes allowed him to succeed in Hiding Key Personality Traits, and it is only when his wife’s death and his subsequent eviction upend his careful routine that the accumulating stressors begin to unravel his carefully woven illusion of normalcy. His possessions, (of which “Rachel” herself is one, at least in his mind) were once strategically scattered in designated places that would prevent his wife and daughter from discovering them. Now, however, Aidan has limited financial resources and cannot replicate his prior lifestyle. He is therefore forced to consolidate the accoutrements of his respectable public life and his depraved secret existence under one roof.
The basement also symbolizes his loss of control in his inability to maintain a sufficient delineation between his two worlds. When “Rachel” enters the basement, she finds that the boxes labeled “Caroline” containing his deceased wife’s possessions are stored within reach of the boxes labeled “Miscellaneous” which contain the clothing that his victims wore on their last night alive. The ineffectually locked door (which Aidan’s daughter breaches with the key and his captive accesses by picking the lock) symbolizes his inability to permanently maintain the self-protective barrier between his façade and the monstrosity that he truly is.
“Numbers”
The Quiet Tenant features eight interludes, each of which is narrated in the first person by each of Aidan’s successive victims. Although these narrative interludes are brief, the recollections of Aidan’s victims provide readers with considerable insight into his most dangerous moments even as they illustrate the evolution of his personal history. For example, Number One recalls Aidan as a college student on the brink of indulging in a fantasy that she believes he had in his mind for some time. Number Two encounters Aidan when he is engaged to Caroline. Number Three is killed just before Cecilia was born, and Number Four when Cecilia starts walking. Similarly, Number Five nearly escapes because he is preoccupied with his wife’s cancer diagnosis. “Rachel” is supposed to be Number Six, and he later tells Number Seven that his wife’s cancer has returned. Number Eight learns that she is dying, and Number Nine fights back and is surprised to note that Aidan seems unsure of himself and his actions even in the midst of murdering her. Thus, each of these nine incidents appear to occur as the result of stressors in Aidan’s life, and this pattern remains consistent with serial murderer methodology.
By introducing these women as a numerical sequence, Clémence Michallon also creates a motif through which Aidan’s crimes are presented as both a timeline of the women’s deaths, but also a timeline of his life events.
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