Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Woman in Cabin 10, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Entrapment and Isolation
Perception vs. Reality
Trauma, Mental Illness, and Resilience
Ambition and Compassion
Wealth and Power
Summary
Analysis
Lo runs through the village and down the road along the fjord until she can’t run anymore, watching as the Aurora draws closer to shore. She notices light in the sky and thinks it must be dawn, then realizes she’s actually seeing “the eerie green and gold streaks of the northern lights.” She laughs at the bitter irony of seeing them now.
As Lo continues walking, she thinks about Carrie’s warnings—which she’d dismissed as hysterical—about the reach of Bullmer’s influence. She now realizes Carrie was right. She left the wallet when she fled the hotel, so she has no money, no ID, and no idea how to find a police station—or if she can trust the police.
Just then, Lo is startled by a car rounding the bend. It’s coming fast, and she tumbles into a ditch, hurting her ankle, as she steps off the road to avoid it. A man gets out of the car and calls to her in heavily-accented English. As the man helps Lo out of the ditch, she realizes he’s a policeman. When she hears him say “Laura Blacklock” into his radio, Lo freezes, wondering what to do. Then she takes off running down the side of the fjord.
Lo’s suspicions about Bullmer and the police seem to be coming true. She hadn’t believed Carrie’s warning the first time, and it cost her; she doesn’t want to make the same mistake again.
Themes
