Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Silent Patient, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Empathy, Identification, and Boundaries
Tragedy and Destiny
Honesty vs. Deception
Childhood Trauma
Silence vs. “The Talking Cure”
Summary
Analysis
The Part 2 epigraph is another quote from Sigmund Freud: “unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways.” Like Part 1, Part 2 also begins with an excerpt from Alicia’s diary, written about a month before the murder happened.
Though much of Freud’s theory has since been discredited or debated, Theo certainly shares the psychoanalyst’s belief that everything “buried” will “come forth later,” often in more harmful or violent ways.
Themes
Alicia complains of the heat (“each day is hotter than the last”) and wishes for rain. The hot summer also makes her think about the summer her mother Eva Rose died. She recalls her mother as “flimsy and delicate,” always dressed in colorful clothing and dancing and smelling of vodka. It strikes Alicia that she is now older than her mother ever was.
The loss of Eva is constantly on Alicia’s mind; there is even a sense that she might feel guilty about outliving her mother (which perhaps helps to explain her own suicide attempts later). There is also a similarity between Alicia’s “delicate” mother and Theo’s wobbly one.
Themes
On her way to the park, Alicia sees a small bird that has fallen. The bird is motionless, and she turns it over to examine it. She is horrified to discover that the underside of the bird is covered in maggots.
Symbolically, this bird is a reminder that appearances are not always indicative: what seems lovely and alive might actually be death-ridden and horrific.
Themes
In the next entry, Alicia describes her habit of going to a nearby café to sit and sketch or take notes. Their home does not have air-conditioning, but the café does. Alicia is struggling in the heat, so she buys an electric fan for the house. Alicia appreciates the cool air, but even with the help of the fan, she feels it is too hot to work—and she begins falling behind in her painting.
Alex Michaelides, the novel’s author, has explained that he often uses weather to signify something about his characters’ mental states—so here, the heat shows how Alicia is overwhelmed and exhausted. In another interesting parallel, Alicia is determined to get cool, just as Theo was determined to catch snowflakes (as a child).
Themes
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Alicia has been working on a picture of Jesus on the cross, but she realizes that inadvertently, she has painted Jesus as Gabriel: “it’s his face, […] his body.” Alicia explains that she never knows what she is painting going into it, and though the unknown scares her, she also feels she must “surrender” to it. She decides to ask Gabriel if he will sit for the painting so she can more accurately capture him.
Theo has already admitted to a certain degree of obsession with Alicia, but now, Alicia’s own obsessiveness comes to the fore. Her desire to paint her way through these intense feelings also shows that she uses her artwork as a method of communication and clarity—as a method of therapy, one could say.
Themes
The following day—in a new entry—Alicia recounts visiting Camden Market, where she has not been in years. Gabriel complains that the place has become a “sanitized tourist trap,” but Alicia thinks the change is more in Gabriel’s mind than in reality. She is overwhelmed by a wave of sudden desire for her husband: when they have sex, she craves something that’s “bigger than me, bigger than us, beyond words—something holy.”
As will become increasingly apparent, Alicia often finds that her feelings for Gabriel are “bigger than words.” Gabriel’s reflections on Camden Market affirm just how much reality is created by the mind—even for people who do not suffer from mental illness.
Themes
Alicia sees a homeless man who is sick and cursing. She pictures him as a baby and thinks of his mother: “did she ever imagine her baby would end up crazy, dirty and stinking?” Alicia’s mind then drifts to her own mother, who killed herself by driving into a brick wall while Alicia was in the passenger seat. Sometimes, though, Alicia feels that she was the intended victim of her mother Eva’s car crash—that it was more murder than suicide.
This critical passage shows Alicia grappling with the question of how innocent children become troubled, struggling adults. Though she does not state it outright, she hints at the fact that parenting—in this case, specifically motherhood—can damage a baby as much as it can help it. There is also a link to the Alcestis painting here: just as Admetus sacrifices his wife, Eva might have been trying to sacrifice her daughter.
Themes
Alicia begins to cry: “there’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it.” She wonders if she will follow Eva’s path to insanity. But she cuts herself off before she can finish the thought.
Whereas Ruth and Theo intentionally work to empathize, Alicia feels a lack of empathy—as if everyone around her closes their eyes to other people’s pain.
Themes
Two days later, in another entry, Alicia and Gabriel have settled on a date night. Gabriel is romantic at heart, but he tries to cover it up by being unsentimental. He suggests that they go to their favorite nearby Italian restaurant, Augusto’s. After dinner, Alicia and Gabriel have sex, and she asks if he will sit for her Jesus painting.
For the first time, readers get a sense of Alicia and Gabriel’s relationship, which seems peaceful. But can Alicia be trusted? Is Gabriel really a romantic at heart, or does she just see him that way because she idolizes him so much?
Themes
Gabriel is reluctant—he fears that others will think it is a comment on their marriage—but he eventually agrees. Alicia reflects that in many ways, Gabriel saved her from herself: he encouraged her to keep painting when she wanted to quit, and he helped her quit her druggie circle of friends. Alicia vows that their marriage is “until death do us part.”
Gabriel’s hesitancy seems to come in part because Alicia actually does view him as a kind of Jesus figure, putting him on an impossible pedestal. Alicia’s mention of “death” here also foreshadows the death that, from the very first pages, readers know is bound to happen.
Themes
The next day, Alicia writes one more entry, focusing on her time painting Gabriel. She is struggling with the painting: she cannot catch the sparkle in Gabriel’s eyes, the very thing that attracted her to him in the first place. Eventually, they take a break and have sex, but Alicia still finds herself haunted by the “lifeless eyes” in the painting.
If Theo is desperate to unlock his patients’ minds, Alicia seems to have a similar desire as a painter—she wants to accurately capture Gabriel, which means understanding him in a way she might not actually be capable of. The word “lifeless,” like the mention of “death,” is meant to raise the stakes, a reminder of the murderous place this marriage ends up.
Themes
