49 pages • 1 hour read
Freida McFaddenThe Locked Door
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A 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 Locked Door
The locked door of the novel’s title also serves as the narrative’s central symbol. The locked door refers to the entrance to the basement in Nora’s childhood home, which led to her father’s supposed woodworking area. In reality, as 11-year-old Nora discovers, the locked door leads to where her father keeps his kidnapped victims and murders them, covering up the scent of his crimes through constant cleaning with lavender. The locked door thus symbolizes the secrecy and cruelty that lurks beneath Aaron’s outwardly charming public persona.
Later in the novel, Nora discovers another locked door, this time in Brady’s apartment. Nora fears the worst, wondering if she is about to discover another terrible secret. Instead, the door opens onto a child’s bedroom, which belongs to Brady’s young daughter, Ruby. The symbolism of this second door thus suggests that a happier life awaits Nora, invoking loving connections and domestic peace instead of the terror and violence of her childhood home.
Nora’s Cat
The stray cat hanging around Nora’s house, which she eventually adopts, acts as a symbol of Nora’s humanity throughout the novel. As a child, Nora kills the hamsters and mice her parents give her as pets. As an adult, she feels that it’s “not safe” for her to have a cat as a pet, suggesting that she feels she lacks the basic humanity to care for another living being. However, she can’t bear to see the cat hungry and ultimately decides to start feeding it regularly, keeping it outside the house. Nora sees her relationship with the cat as a sign of the difference between herself and her father. She repeatedly states that her father “wouldn’t have fed a stray cat” (23) and that feeding the cat means that she’s “not like [her] father” (37). The novel suggests that feeding the cat is an act of kindness and humanity that her father is incapable of.
Ultimately, Nora’s relationship with the cat saves her life. In Chapter 27, the cat runs inside Nora’s house and leads her into the basement. Nora finds the cat “in the far end of the basement, in the corner, lapping at a puddle of water” (192). The water turns out to be blood, leading Nora to realize that she is being set up. Later, when Harper has Nora cornered in the basement, the cat attacks Harper in a “flash of black fur” (294), allowing Nora to fight back. The novel’s ending suggests that Nora’s humanity—her intentional decision not to be like her father—is what saves her life.
“Honey, I’m Home”
As the novel begins, Nora lives a lonely life, with little human contact beyond her patients and the people she works with. Although she lives alone, Nora uses the phrase “Honey, I’m home” (21, 66, 103, 209, 237) as a motif throughout the novel whenever she enters her house. As Nora explains, “[I]t’s funny because, you know, I live alone” (20). The phrase evokes classic sitcoms like I Love Lucy and Bewitched in which protagonists, typically male, come home to loving families. Nora explicitly references these scenes of domestic bliss as she imagines a time when “I would say those words and somebody else—someone like Brady—would come out to greet me [and] would put his arms around me and tell me he’s been keeping dinner warm in the oven” (103).
For Nora, the phrase “Honey, I’m home” conjures images of domesticity and love that offer an ironic contrast to the reality of her lonely life. The fact that Nora’s mother repeatedly refers to her as “honey” (28, 49) suggests that Nora’s desire for traditional domesticity is a traumatic response to the violence that occurred in her home as a child. The repeated motif of the phrase “honey, I’m home” thus reinforces the novel’s thematic interest in The Lasting Effects of Childhood Trauma.
Related Titles
By Freida McFadden
