The Silkworm

Tassel’s confession is multilayered; she despised Quine’s scathing depictions of others, but what she fears the most is his inclusion of an allegorical version of herself as a failed writer turned “foul-mouthed crone.” Her motive thus fuses personal shame with professional reputation management. Galbraith shows that unchecked ego plus systemic invalidation can embolden monstrous acts. Tassel becomes the clearest embodiment of Ego and Vanity as a Destructive Force: Her desire to control how she is seen leads to cruelty, manipulation, and ultimately murder. Despite being a murderer, Tassel is ultimately portrayed as a tragic figure. Her professional life has been continuously ruined by those around her, and her throat cancer leave her vulnerable despite her efforts to appear powerful with her intimidating personality, rigid personal style, and intimidating dog. She is all mask, performing dominance, intellect, and control while hiding bitterness, failure, and rage. The theme of Identity and Performance is never more literal than in her creation of Bombyx Mori, which she uses as both revenge and self-mythology.

Throughout The Silkworm, physical illness and disability are used not only as character details but as symbolic reflections of internal and social conflict. Tassel’s throat cancer, which leaves her hoarse and constantly coughing, functions as a literal silencing of her voice. Once a young writer with potential, she has been relegated to the sidelines of the literary world. Her raspy voice, paired with her aggressive demeanor, symbolizes both the erosion of her agency and her desperate attempt to reclaim it through manipulation and violence. Strike’s amputated leg similarly symbolizes loss and resilience but also suggests self-directed shame. His refusal to rest, despite constant pain, echoes his emotional stoicism; he would rather suffer than appear weak. Orlando, dismissed and talked over due to her learning disability, becomes another figure whose marginalization is linked to voice. Her seemingly nonsensical comments are dismissed by others but turn out to contain vital truths. Galbraith uses these physical conditions to explore how society discounts those who do not perform intelligence, grief, or strength in recognizable ways. Illness, in this world, becomes a metaphor for the erosion of identity and the moral blindness of those who only listen to the loudest voices.

Although the killer is revealed in the end, Galbraith does not wrap up every element of the case neatly. Leonora’s release is tinged with residual public suspicion, and Orlando’s joy is counterbalanced by the vision of a future where she will always need continued support from a mother already stretched thin, raising lingering questions about long-term care, vulnerability, and dignity. In the text, justice is unevenly distributed—those who speak plainly are disbelieved, while those who mask themselves in intellect and entitlement This section delivers the classic detective-novel ending of the public unmasking of the killer. It also drives home one of Galbraith’s overarching social critiques: Institutions will bend over backwards to protect their own and downplay evidence of evil in their inner circles. Strike organizes a confrontation that echoes golden-age mysteries; the suspects are assembled, clues are announced, and the killer is revealed. He narrates how Elizabeth Tassel manipulated evidence, exploited Pippa, and banked on Leonora’s odd demeanor to sell the frame-up. In doing so, he reframes the case as a parable of structural gullibility toward stereotypes. Leonora’s quiet grief and Orlando’s behavior are both treated as red flags by the authorities, offering a clear echo of the novel’s exploration of Identity and Performance. Those who don’t perform grief, intelligence, or femininity “correctly” are more easily cast as villains. This scene is also used as a critique of the traditional police investigation, which relied on stereotypes, assumptions, and surface-level clues rather than working to solve the case.

evade scrutiny for far too long. Ellacott’s success in clearing Leonora is almost overshadowed by the car wreck she endures while capturing Tassel. This underscores the novel’s deeper point about Gender and Power: The cost of being a woman who does the right thing is often physical, emotional, and unacknowledged. Ellacott is brutalized for her competence while Strike, who similarly pushes against institutional power, is celebrated, even as he, too, wrestles with emotional blindness. Matthew, by contrast, fades into the background, a reminder of the everyday mediocrity even as he briefly accepts Ellacott’s passion for criminal investigation.

Strike, however, pays his price; media attention reignites around him, and he once again finds himself feeling overly exposed. Yet his final moments of tenderness with Ellacott, though sincere, are laced with contradiction. He still operates within a patriarchal framework that sees women’s value as both professional and romantic, entangled. The surprise hand kiss is both affectionate and performative, and it reminds the reader that Strike struggles to separate admiration from possession.

The brief epilogue is thematically crucial. Strike limps through London alone, the city teeming with anonymous people whose stories he will probably never know. The unresolved tension between him, Ellacott, and Matthew hangs in the air. Strike promises that Ellacott will be given a bigger role in future cases, but the intimacy he initiates in the final scene suggests that Ego and Vanity as a Destructive Force is not limited to villains. Even problem-solvers like Strike struggle with boundaries, power, and the desire to be needed. The reader is left with the sense that justice is never fully served in a broken system. A killer is in custody, but the structural biases that nearly condemned Leonora persist in both law enforcement and public opinion. The literary world will spin Tassel’s downfall into gossip, and Quine’s book may yet become a cult classic and will make his family rich, but at the cost of his life. The story ends where it began, with the danger of narrative itself. To write, to accuse, to confess, and to frame are all forms of authorship. The story closes with lingering artifacts of violence and authorship: a typewriter ribbon extracted from a child’s toy, a manuscript buried in a freezer, and a partner injured in the act of pursuit. These material reminders demonstrate that in Galbraith’s world, narrative is never neutral, and authorship is always an exercise of power.