36 pages • 1 hour read
Jeff VanderMeerAnnihilation
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Tower
The tower is both the geographic center of the novel and the novel’s figurative center of meaning. In a literal sense, the tower is where the Crawler writes words on the wall that provide clues to the mysteries of Area X. It is where the narrator first inhales the spores that alter her sense perceptions; it is where the anthropologist dies; within its walls the narrator confronts the Crawler and sees a mysterious door or bright light. Beyond being the setting for these events, however, the tower also acts as the symbolic heart of Area X. It seems to act in coordination with the land that surrounds it, and yet, as the narrator discovers, it is a living, breathing organism, seemingly with a kind of will of its own. Journal reports reveal the tower emitting mysterious lights; inside its walls live a diverse range of creatures and habitats. All of these details amount to a picture of the tower as a mysterious, intriguing, and possibly dangerous location. In this way, it is a reflection and microcosm of Area X itself.
The Lighthouse
Several signs point to a kind of kinship between the tower and the lighthouse. Though the tower descends below the ground and the lighthouse ascends into the sky, they seem to be structurally contiguous. For example, the narrator notes that the stairs of the tower resemble the stairs of the lighthouse. In separate instances, strange lights can be seen coming from both, suggesting they share some sort of quality, capability, or significance. However, if the tower stands for the mysterious heart of Area X, the lighthouse symbolically represents the opposite, a reassuring reminder of the existence of a world beyond Area X. As the narrator notes while reading the journals of previous expedition members, “I could only underscore my previous speculation that to most of them a lighthouse was a symbol, a reassurance of the old order, and by its prominence on the horizon it provided an illusion of safe refuge” (116).
As the narrator notes, the lighthouse’s symbolic status as a refuge is only a symbol. Within the lighthouse walls are signs of unspeakable violence and bloodshed. In this way, the lighthouse serves as a fitting symbol for the illusion of escape from Area X: As the psychologist tells the narrator, no one ever really comes back from Area X.
The Moaning in the Reeds
Throughout the novel, the characters hear a moaning out in the reeds. At first it seems as though the sound might simply be a feature of the wind, or an ordinary animal, but one night, the members of the expedition call back to it while drinking, and the source of noise responds startlingly, as though “it knew we were mimicking it” (32). This first suggestion that the source of moaning has an almost-human intelligence is confirmed when the narrator later encounters the creature out in the reeds. She believes she recognizes a human-like mask the creature sheds, and once again, the narrator has the sense the creature only wants to be clearly seen or interacted with, rather than mauling or killing her. In this way, the moaning creature acts as a symbol for a greater intelligence active in Area X. That is, it seems that nearly all living organisms in Area X, from the boars to the tower to the moss, are part of a single but diverse intelligent process.
