59 pages • 1-hour read
What She Left Behind: A Haunting and Heartbreaking Story of 1920s Historical Fiction
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Chapters 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, gender discrimination, graphic violence, substance use, bullying, physical abuse, suicidal ideation, self-harm, ableism, and child sexual abuse.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Izzy “
Izzy confesses that she took and read Clara’s journal. Peg tells her to ask next time but is interested in Clara’s life. A few days later, Peg and Harry take Izzy back to Willard to look through medical records. Peter meets them there and tells Izzy that Ethan says hello and apologizes for missing the trip because of basketball practice. They all put on protective gear and find the records room.
Peg is looking for records of a patient whose last name starts with C, like Clara Cartwright’s, and the records are generally alphabetized. Izzy finds Esther Baldwin’s file and then Clara’s. The records state that Clara was diagnosed with “Paranoid delusion with hallucinations” (161). The dated entries contradict themselves, saying that Bruno isn’t real and that Clara isn’t pregnant but later saying that she gave birth to a daughter. Izzy wonders what happened to the baby and vows to find her and give her Clara’s journal.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Clara”
Clara is kept in the infirmary until September and receives better treatment there than with the general population. The meals are similar to the meals she had at the Long Island Home; Roach requested better food for her. She names her daughter Beatrice Elizabeth Moretti and longs to take her outside. Roach claims to have informed Henry about the birth, but there has been no reply. Meanwhile, Clara worries about her proximity to infectious diseases in the infirmary; she doesn’t want her newborn catching something. Clara also wonders if her mother has any maternal instinct given that she hasn’t intervened to have Clara and her baby released.
After Clara gave birth, the doctor sterilized her without her consent. Roach told her this in their first meeting afterward. Since her birth, Beatrice has been a “good eater” of Clara’s milk. Roach has been visiting the infirmary on a weekly basis and making sure Beatrice is healthy.
In September, a woman from the Children’s Aid Society named Miss Mason comes to take Clara’s baby. Clara kicks, punches, and scratches Mason and a doctor when they try to remove Beatrice from Clara’s arms. However, when orderlies assist the doctor and Mason, Clara is forced to release Beatrice, who is crying. Clara manages to break free and grabs Beatrice from Mason, but the orderlies restrain Clara once again and take Beatrice from her. Mason says it’s clear that Clara is not fit to be a mother. Clara continues to fight against the orderlies, who push her head against the floor and drug her. She wakes up in the Rookie Pest House, chained to a bed.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Izzy”
In October, Izzy tells Peg and Harry that she’s staying at Alex’s, but she’s actually planning on camping with seniors from several schools. Alex drives Izzy to Seneca Lake, and the sight of the night sky reflected in it makes Izzy think about the connection between the moon and mental illness (i.e., “lunacy”). At the campsite, Izzy sees Ethan with Shannon, cuddled in a blanket. Alex says that there are rumors that Ethan is going to break up with Shannon and ask Izzy out. Izzy thinks that this is unlikely and doesn’t want to upset Shannon further.
Alex introduces Izzy to students from Lakeshore and Romulus. As they are chatting, Shannon, Ethan, Crystal, Josh, and Dave come over, and Shannon asks to speak to Izzy alone. However, Alex asks Shannon to speak in front of everyone. Shannon then apologizes for how she’s treated Izzy and Alex. Alex doesn’t accept this apology, but Shannon continues, identifying her behavior as problematic. Izzy tells Shannon to ignore people’s comments about her parents. Shannon apologizes for talking about Izzy’s mother. In doing so, she reveals that Izzy’s mother is imprisoned, prompting Alex to call out Shannon for sharing that information in front of another group of people. Shannon says that she didn’t mean to hurt Izzy and apologizes to her again. Izzy accepts her apology, and Alex begrudgingly agrees to be civil.
After Shannon invites Alex and Izzy to hang out with them, Alex tells Izzy to be careful because Shannon has never apologized like that before. Around midnight, Izzy decides to go to bed in her tent. Josh hits on Izzy. Dave announces that it’s time, and Josh explains that they are breaking into Willard. Alex is interested in the paranormal and quickly agrees to go along. Izzy says that she’s not interested, and Josh offers to keep her company while the others go to Willard.
To avoid Josh’s advances, Izzy agrees to go to Willard. Once at the facility, they split into groups. Izzy and Alex end up in a group with Josh, Luke, Dave, and Crystal, headed to the morgue. Along the way, Izzy sees that the fire escapes from Chapin Hall have cages around them to prevent patients from escaping. They also pass by the tubs used for ice baths. Alex makes a detour into the electroshock therapy room, and the others follow her. Izzy is happy when they leave the room. Next, they walk past cages with chains.
Finally, they arrive at the morgue. Izzy sees a filing cabinet and looks through it but only finds blank death certificates. Crystal announces that they are going to do a seance. Josh opens a door in the storage vault and says that he’ll give Luke $5 to lie in it. Dave says he’ll make that $10 if Luke allows them to close the door of the storage vault. Crystal demands that they start the seance. They stand around the autopsy table, and Crystal lights a candle. Luke and Josh are uncomfortable holding each other’s hands but do so at the urging of the others.
Crystal asks if there are any spirits in the room, requesting that they give a sign if there are. There is a “thud-thud” sound that repeats. Alex asks whether the spirit was a patient and if other patients are also present. Crystal asks the spirit to make a different sound, prompting a repeated “knock, knock, knock” (196). The candle and flashlight go out, and Alex screams and demands to be let go. Izzy runs toward the door, but Josh gets in her way. He turns her around and picks her up. Dave picks up her ankles. Josh and Dave put Izzy on a slab and push her inside the storage vault, injuring her arms when they close the door. Josh and Dave then lock Izzy in the vault.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Clara”
Clara is able to see Lawrence work from her window in the Rookie Pest House. He is a dedicated worker, and she admires him. She herself longs for death because of the unsanitary conditions and the effects of trauma. She is forced to take laudanum and dreams about her daughter. At first, she begs the orderlies to help her find Beatrice. Later, she tries a hunger strike, but the orderlies physically abuse her until she eats. In February, she dreams about Beatrice as an adult and is comforted. Afterward, she starts hiding her laudanum doses and only pretending to be drugged. In March, she tells Roach that Beatrice is “better off being raised by someone else” (201), assuming it is what he wants to hear.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Izzy”
Izzy attempts to escape the morgue vault by kicking and pounding on the walls. She screams, demands to be released, and hears laughter, followed by the sound of the others leaving. Izzy briefly hopes that they will return but then realizes that Alex may not know that Izzy is trapped until they get out of Willard. There’s a knocking from the vault below Izzy, and she imagines that it is a mobile skeleton.
Izzy remembers a recurring childhood nightmare and feels like she is suffocating. Izzy pulls down the zipper on her hoodie and starts digging her nails into her arms. However, she is able to stop herself by thinking that self-harming would mean that Shannon “won.” The knocking eventually stops.
Eventually, Alex and Ethan come into the morgue, yelling Izzy’s name. She bangs on the door and yells back. After opening a couple of nearby doors, Ethan threatens someone. The person says that they paid him, and Ethan slams the person into the vault. Alex goes back to opening doors, and Izzy is finally pulled out of the vault. She sits up and gets dizzy. Ethan helps her stand. Alex confirms that she didn’t know what happened to Izzy until she got outside. Ethan holds on to Izzy as they walk out of Willard. He also gives Izzy his sweatshirt. She tells him that Josh and Dave put her in the vault. Ethan apologizes, and Alex insults Shannon. Izzy realizes that Shannon must be upset at Ethan for coming to rescue Izzy.
Izzy, Ethan, and Alex go to the boathouse, where the others are. Crystal approaches Izzy with fake concern, but Izzy ignores her. Izzy approaches Shannon, and Josh steps in front of her. Shannon also feigns concern, but Izzy gets around Josh, grabs Shannon’s collar, and threatens Shannon, demanding that she apologize. Josh pulls Izzy off and denies putting Izzy in the vault. However, Alex supports Izzy’s assertion that Josh put her in the vault. Shannon denies putting Josh up to locking Izzy in the vault, and Izzy tries to grab Shannon again. Josh gets close to Izzy, and Ethan punches him. Ethan almost punches Dave as well, but Izzy stops him. Then, Ethan breaks up with Shannon.
Ethan discovered that the knocking that Izzy heard was coming from a boy named Bryan, whom Shannon paid to do so. Josh defends Shannon, claiming that she is innocent. Ethan says Josh and Shannon can be together openly now. Izzy turns down Ethan’s suggestion of going to the ER, instead going home with Alex.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
Wiseman’s two narratives intersect in both straightforward and subtle ways, underscoring the parallels between Clara’s and Izzy’s stories. For example, shortly after Clara’s narrative introduces Esther, Peg finds Esther’s chart in Izzy’s narrative. Other areas of overlap are more extensive, with symbolic and thematic resonance. For instance, Izzy’s experience being locked in the morgue vault in this section foreshadows Clara’s attempt to escape Willard in a coffin in the next section. During her ordeal, Izzy thinks, “You’re not in a coffin. You’re in a vault, with a door. There is a way out. You just have to wait until someone comes and opens it” (205). This anticipates how Clara must wait for the coffin to be opened after Bruno nails her inside.
Izzy’s imprisonment in the morgue symbolically develops the theme of Institutional Control of Women’s Bodies. Josh imprisons Izzy because Shannon asked him to and because Izzy turned down his sexual advances. Shannon, meanwhile, is threatened by Izzy and has her imprisoned to assert dominance over her. In both cases, the act is meant to serve as a form of misogynistic punishment, and the novel stresses how traumatic the experience is for Izzy: “There wasn’t enough room inside the narrow compartment to bend her knees and push her body over. She kicked at the low ceiling and pounded on the walls” (202). The physical contortion of Izzy’s position suggests both the literal and figurative ways that patriarchal systems confine women, while the location of the vault—a morgue—likens this control to a kind of death.
The vault is also part of a broader motif of cages, which Wiseman develops further in this section. Izzy notices that there are cages around the fire escapes at Willard, as well as around the exits: “If there had been a fire, the people inside could have gone out the door and down the steps, but they’d have to wait inside the cage for someone to let them out” (186). To the people who designed the facility, it is more important that patients remain imprisoned than that they survive a disaster.
One goal of such imprisonment becomes clearer after Clara gives birth. While in the infirmary, Clara is treated better than she is in other parts of the prison, receiving better meals. However, this is only temporary: Roach wants her to nourish the baby he is going to steal from her. His theft of her child, coupled with her involuntary sterilization, highlights a reality of psychiatric care in the 1920s: women losing power over their fertility and children, typically on eugenicist grounds. The novel, however, implies that the phenomenon had as much to do with misogyny as anything else: It marks the culmination of Wiseman’s exploration of how patriarchal institutions have sought to control and co-opt women’s reproductive abilities.
In another instance of Defining Female Autonomy as Mental Illness, Roach punishes Clara for fighting the orderlies when they take her baby, treating her actions not as resistance but as evidence of pathology demanding more drastic intervention. He puts her in the Rookie Pest House, which she feared earlier in the novel. Her ultimate acknowledgment that her child will be better off with a different mother, though insincere and strategic, highlights the double bind women who defy gender expectations face: When noncompliance is viewed as evidence of mental illness, compliance means recognizing one’s “mental illness,” thus legitimating the diagnosis.
Clara’s experiences in the Rookie Pest House also furnish an additional parallel with Izzy. While there, she is drugged with laudanum, which causes her to have dreams of her child’s kidnapping. Izzy also dreams about her repressed trauma: “The first memory of her recurring childhood nightmare came to her now, no doubt brought to the surface by being locked in the vault” (204). Nightmares, and the ability to endure them, support the theme of Intergenerational Trauma and Resilience. Clara also has positive dreams about her daughter as an adult, which foreshadow their reunion at the end of the novel and suggest that Clara’s resilience is rooted in the hope of seeing her daughter again. Meanwhile, Izzy’s resilience is rooted in the hope of reuniting Clara and her daughter, implying that women heal from trauma in large part by helping one another heal.
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