53 pages • 1 hour read
In the Woods
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Symbols & Motifs
The Woods
The woods loom large, in a symbolic and physical sense, throughout the narrative. They are described in vivid detail at various points in the story. The woods can be either enchanting or ominous depending on Rob’s perception at the time. Initially, Rob paints an idyllic scene for the reader:
The wood is all flicker and murmur and illusion, its silence is a pointillist conspiracy of a million tiny noises—rustles, flurries, nameless truncated shrieks; its emptiness teems with secret life scurrying just beyond the corner of your eye […] These three children own the summer […] They scramble through its trees and hide-and-seek in its hollows all the endless day long, and all night in their dreams. (2-3)
After his friends disappear and he loses his memory, Rob retains a fragmentary image of the woods as he knew them—blue sky and wind sighing through a huge expanse of grass. However, this association pains him. He describes it as a blank test pattern.
In some sense, Rob blames the woods for spiriting his friends away. In his mind, the woods are no longer a physical location but a malevolent entity, like the fairy tale witch who lurks in the forest and steals Hansel and Gretel. He never returns to Knocknaree until the Devlin case brings him back.
Rob’s wariness of the woods escalates to extreme terror on the night he decides to camp there. The closer his memory brings him to whatever took Jamie and Peter away, the more deadly the woods become:
I ran. I scrabbled out of the clutching sleeping bag and threw myself into the wood, away from the clearing. Brambles clawed at my legs and hair; wing-beats exploded in my ear; I shoulder-barged straight into a tree trunk, knocking myself breathless. Invisible dips and hollows flicked open under my feet […] it was like every childhood nightmare come true. (392-93)
Groups of Three
Adam, Jamie, and Peter form the central trio in the book, but they are far from the only example. The number three is echoed in the dynamic of many other groups. Rob finds his greatest present-moment happiness in the trio formed by Cassie, Sam, and himself.
In the symbolism of the book, three can either represent stability or stultification depending on the circumstance. Rob draws comfort from his trio of childhood friends as well as his trio of adult colleagues.
Jonathan Devlin derives the same comfort from the biker trio of his youth. Superficially, the trio of Devlin children appear to offer support to one another. Their number is echoed in their Aunt Vera’s three children.
Seen in a more negative light, the number three also represents triangulation and stultification. Triangulation is a tactic used by sociopaths to play two people against one another while the sociopath takes advantage of the situation. Rosalind places herself at the apex of the triangle consisting of herself, Jessica, and Katy. She is at the top of the pyramid and suppresses her siblings. Katy threatens to shatter this stasis by challenging Rosalind’s position. Rosalind says that Katy was getting “above herself” (549). By rising to Rosalind’s level and refusing to hold her position in the trio, Katy dooms herself.
Elusive Memories
Rob casually claims that he doesn’t care to know what happened the day his friends disappeared. He’s perfectly well-adjusted in the absence of that knowledge. However, fragments of memory hover maddeningly around the border of his consciousness.
The language used to describe these episodes is tentative. The descriptions are indistinct. At times, these visuals are half-seen images. Rob says, “I caught it out of the corner of my eye and whipped round; I was sure I had seen something shoot out of the fireplace into the room” (223).
At other times, there are murmurs and whispers that can scarcely be heard: “Delicate little noises in the corners of my mind” (242).
In other instances, Rob experiences muscle memory tremors, but there is no memory to associate with his reaction. He observes that he’d “see the article and notice, detachedly, that my hands were shaking and it was hard to breathe, but this was purely a physical reflex and only lasted a few minutes anyway” (60).
These memories hover just out of the range of consciousness precisely because Rob is too terrified to confront them directly. He has no real interest in overcoming his fear. As Rob watches the last of the woods being cut down, the reader is left to speculate that he feels a certain relief at the destruction of the place. He’ll never have to return there again. Out of sight, out of mind.
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