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
Jean-Felix takes Theo to a storage room and unwraps several of Alicia’s paintings. The first depicts the car crash that killed Eva Rose: her mother’s spirit, shown in yellow and red, rises from the debris. Jean-Felix thinks the picture is “joyous,” whereas Theo sees it as unsettling.
In addition to reaffirming the profound impact Eva’s suicide had on her daughter, Jean-Felix’s debate with Theo hints at the difficulty of communicating via art. Though Alicia sends messages through her paintings, those messages are inherently open to interpretation—and sometimes, interpretations conflict.
Themes
The next painting is of Gabriel as Jesus—with a rifle strapped across his midsection. And the third painting is of Lydia Rose. Theo notes that this picture is “cruel”: it shows Lydia as a giant woman on a tiny bed, her fat spilling everywhere. But Jean-Felix finds it “lovely.”
These two paintings reveal that Alicia often uses her artwork as a method of critique. The painting of Lydia mocks and demonizes the older woman, Alicia’s way of getting revenge at last. And the picture of Gabriel as Jesus, holding the gun Alicia hated, suggests that a measure of resentment is embedded in her worship of him.
Themes
At last, Jean-Felix shows Theo the Alcestis. Theo feels that the painting is impossible to interpret, and Jean-Felix argues that that is the point: Alicia’s entire message is her silence. To better understand, Jean-Felix encourages Theo to read the play Alcestis by Euripides. Looking closer, Theo notices that the bowl of apples in the background is covered with maggots. Jean-Felix sighs that the painting is beautiful, while Theo thinks that it only shows Alicia’s pain.
This rich exchange contains lots of vital details. First, Jean-Felix introduces the crucial suggestion that Alicia’s silence is itself a method of communication—in her silence, she articulates protest and pain in a way she might not be able to with words. Second, the maggots here link to the maggots Alicia saw on the underside of the bird, when she felt that there was darkness and rot under even the happiest things. And third, Jean-Felix’s comment that this painting is “beautiful” further suggests that he is somehow exploiting Alicia’s pain (and the whole scandal around the murder).
Themes
Theo asks about Alicia’s suicide attempt, and Jean-Felix explains that she had always hated her father; when he killed himself, it set her completely off. Theo wants to know more, but Jean-Felix accepts a call from someone he refers to as “baby.” Theo begins to dislike Jean-Felix, but he cannot pin his finger on why.
The more Theo learns about Alicia, the more he realizes that everyone in her childhood was a figure of torment: Lydia was demanding, Eva was suicidal (and perhaps murderous), and Vernon’s not-yet-known behavior was perhaps most damaging of all.
Themes
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Before he leaves, Theo asks Jean-Felix if he has ever heard about the doctor Alicia saw after her suicide attempt; Jean-Felix says he has not. As a parting gift of sorts, he encourages Theo to give Alicia paints and paintbrushes: “that’s the only way she’ll talk to you. Through her art.” Theo wonders if Jean-Felix is in love with Alicia, but then quickly comes to understand that what Jean-Felix wants is the art, not the woman behind it.
Though Jean-Felix is clearly a compromised friend, motivated by lust, jealousy, and ambition more than true care, he also understands just how much Alicia’s art is her way of interacting with the world—communicating even through her silence.
Themes
