What She Left Behind: A Haunting and Heartbreaking Story of 1920s Historical Fiction

A water motif appears throughout the novel, from Seneca Lake to ice baths, and extends into Wiseman’s figurative language. The lake plays the dual role of a holiday spot for vacationers and a method for transporting patients to Willard. This dichotomy heightens Clara’s emotional anguish, as freedom is tantalizingly close yet seemingly unreachable. It also foreshadows the role the lake will play in her own attempt to escape Willard. At the beginning of the novel, Izzy notices that “sailboats bobbed across the waves” (1). Clara, while a prisoner at Willard, also notices how a “teakwood boat cut a white line through the waves” (149). These boats anticipate the rowboat that Clara and Bruno hope will ferry then from imprisonment to freedom. However, Bruno and Lawrence die in the water, transforming the lake from a symbol of freedom to one of tragedy and loss.

When Clara is experiencing suicidal ideation after Bruno’s death, she still sees the lake as a morbid place. She thinks, “If she broke the window and squeezed through the pane, then ran as fast as she could toward the lake, she could make it into the water before anyone caught her.