Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Shadow of the Wind, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Duality and Repetition
Possessive and Obsessive Love
Fathers, Sons, and Masculinity
Reality and the Written Word
Coincidence and Determinism
Summary
Analysis
Nuria knows that Penélope is dead, but can’t bear to tell Carax, so she just insists on accompanying him when he returns to the Aldaya mansion. Carax breaks the gate’s lock by pouring acid on it, and they ascend to Jacinta’s room, which is now unfurnished and covered with bloodstains.
Nuria knows almost everything about the mystery by now; but because she’s too afraid to confront the tragic past, she dooms Carax to relive it over again, rather than finally resolving it.
Themes
Carax notices a bricked-up door at the end of the hall and knocks it down with great effort, revealing the carved angels on the original door. He goes into the cellar, and finally sees Penélope’s marble tomb and that of his own stillborn son, David.
It’s ironic that angels, symbols of heavenly purity, guard the novel’s most grotesque secret. Their presence is an indictment of the Aldaya family’s cruel and cowardly treatment of their own daughter.
Themes
