59 pages • 1 hour read
Matthew BlakeAnna O
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Fairy Tales: “Sleeping Beauty” and Her “Prince”
Anna’s nickname of “Sleeping Beauty” is representative of her stunning looks, high-class lifestyle, ladylike demeanor, and four-year-long sleep. She’s called “Sleeping Beauty, a figure of myth and reality” (111), a legend, and a sensation because of her circumstances, and thus the fairy tale functions as a recurring motif throughout the novel. Anna’s many fans and true-crime-obsessed media outlets also use this symbolic name to identify her as akin to a princess. To fit the princess mold, she’s supposed to be tender, stunning, kind, and innocent—someone who is incapable of evil. These ideas make people like Lola write that “we must do whatever we can to help save her” (61). Anna is the public’s victimized princess.
Meanwhile, Ben’s last name of Prince is her counterpart symbolizing acts of chivalry and the part of the savior. Anna is the damsel in distress, a real sleeping beauty, while Ben’s role is to rescue her. Ben fits into this princely standard many times, but especially when he builds a kinship with Anna and chooses to protect her from her trial: “I am a gatekeeper between Anna and the world. I’m the prince from the fairy tale, sworn to protect and liberate her, however odious that notion is to modern sensibilities” (194). By not giving Anna up to the justice system, Ben acts as a safeguard. He sacrifices his safety because he puts himself and his family at risk of being targeted.
Furthermore, references to fairy tales, damsels in distress, chivalry, protection, and happily ever after abound. For instance, Clara says Anna gets away with her crimes and lives happily ever after, people warn Ben to wake her up instead of save her like a prince, and Ben swears to protect his family and Anna from harm. After Anna drugs Ben, the fairy tale language is obvious: “‘Evil is vanquished and order restored. Goodbye, Doctor,’ [Anna says]. And in that moment Sleeping Beauty leaves her Prince and travels to a far-off kingdom. She is never seen again” (400). The many fairy-tale references associate the characters with the parts they’re expected to fulfill. Their nicknames “Sleeping Beauty” and “Prince” link associations to the characteristics described above. However, as a thriller, the novel offers twists from classic fairy-tale motifs when Ben and Anna do not fall in love, when Ben can’t protect her from the jury (Harriet does), and when Anna is found guilty of unknowingly killing her friends and consciously killing Ben.
Sigmund Freud’s Anna O. Case Study
As Freud is mentioned many times in the novel, his psychological study on Anna O. is symbolic of the themes of the mind’s power, the effects of sleep, Anna’s descent into sleep deprivation, and a character comparison. Blake directly links the two Annas by having them share the same first name and last initial. Freud’s Anna O. was the first patient of psychosis, and Anna of the novel is the first patient to prove Ben’s resignation syndrome treatment is effective. The Annas have similar qualities too, as present-day Anna reads:
Fraulein Anna O. fell ill at the age of twenty-one (1880) . . . Of considerable intelligence, remarkably acute powers of reasoning, and a clear-sighted intuitive sense, her powerful mind could have digested, needed even, more substantial intellectual nourishment, but failed to receive it once she had left school. Her rich poetic and imaginative gifts were controlled by a very sharp and critical common sense . . . Her will was energetic, tenacious and persistent.
I wonder if there is a single word that doesn’t apply to me (109).
They’re both bright, intellectual, and creative writers. The women also share dark, violent sides and mental trauma. Through Anna’s research, she finds Anna O. inspirational and considers her a natural counterpart, a symbol that also foreshadows her own descent into what Freud deemed “hysteria” when she murdered Douglas, Indira, and Ben.
The Story of Medea
Anna’s second favorite work of literature is the play Medea; this story is symbolic of losing control, maternal wrath, destructive family dynamics, and mental distress. In Medea’s myth, she murders her sons after her spouse Jason leaves her for another woman. In her anguish, Medea murders their own children. Later, Medea has other children with a new lover, and one of her sons ascends the throne. Sally Turner, Clara’s mother, is akin to the present-day Medea—although it’s revealed later that Clara killed her stepbrothers. Like the way Anna is known as Sleeping Beauty, Sally is categorized as the vengeful, unstable mother. Unlike Medea, Sally is innocent of killing her boys, but she can’t escape the parallels and misinformation from the press and other sources who call her a “monster.”
By using the term “Medea” for the confidential methods to treat Sally, the text carries the name further. Bloom’s Medea method is questionable, as the methods were not tested prior and could be viewed as inhumane: “The Medea Method [...] proposes several means of doing so within a specialist and forensic setting: long-term isolation, 24/7 surveillance, sleep deprivation, enhanced restraint methods and sensory overload” (335). Because Sally is villainized as the current Medea, she is brutally punished. In Medea’s story, she escapes consequences, but Sally is pushed into mental turmoil, highlighting the theme of Defining and Pursuing Justice. Anna’s research and Clara’s confession leave questions unanswered, but Sally either died by suicide or was killed in prison. Nevertheless, as in the Medea myth, her child Clara fights their enemies (namely Bloom and Emily) and ascends her modern throne as the “winner.”
