In Alex Michaelides’s novel The Silent Patient, snow symbolizes the great difficulty of finding peace and happiness after childhood trauma. At the beginning of the novel, narrator Theo Faber describes a fleeting moment of joy amidst his father’s abuse—while his father was away and his mother was asleep, Theo snuck outside during a snowstorm, holding his hands out to catch falling snowflakes. “Somehow grasping at vanishing snowflakes is like grasping at happiness,” Theo reflects, “an act of possession that instantly gives way to nothing.”
In interviews, Michaelides has admitted to being inspired by the way William Shakespeare uses weather to communicate interior life and emotion (particularly with the storms in King Lear). So, it is only fitting that snows plays a similar function throughout the novel. When Theo arrives at the Grove to serve as Alicia Berenson’s therapist, his colleagues constantly predict snow, which never comes. But after the depth of Theo’s criminality has been discovered, the snow begins to fall—and the story ends as he catches a snowflake, watches it disappear, and goes “to catch another one.” Given what snow meant to Theo in childhood, the absence of snow throughout his time at the Grove shows how hard it is for him to find the moments of joy he so desperately craves. And by ending with Theo’s repeated attempts to catch snow, this melting, ephemeral substance, the novel hints that Theo’s quest for happiness might be hopeless after all.
Snow Quotes in The Silent Patient
There was a heavy snowstorm that night. My mother went to bed and I pretended to sleep, then I snuck out to the garden and stood under the falling snow. I held my hands outstretched, catching snowflakes, watching them vanish on my fingertips. It felt joyous and frustrating and spoke to some truth I couldn’t express; my vocabulary was too limited, my words too loose a net in which to catch it. Somehow grasping at vanishing snowflakes is like grasping at happiness: an act of possession that instantly gives way to nothing. It reminded me that there was a world outside this house: a world of vastness and unimaginable beauty; a world that, for now, remained out of my reach. That memory has repeatedly returned to me over the years.
I felt strangely calm as I sat in the chair by the window.
[Inspector Allen] cleared his throat and began. “Theo just left. I am alone. I’m writing this as fast as I can…”
As I listened, I looked up at the white clouds drifting past. Finally, they had opened—it had started to snow—snowflakes were falling outside. I opened the window and reached out my hand. I caught a snowflake. I watched it disappear, vanish on my fingertip. I smiled.
And I went to catch another one.
Snow Symbol Timeline in The Silent Patient
