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Part 2, Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Silent Patient, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Empathy, Identification, and Boundaries
Tragedy and Destiny
Honesty vs. Deception
Childhood Trauma
Silence vs. “The Talking Cure”
Summary
Analysis
When Theo enters Alicia’s gallery, it is empty and cold, no longer packed as it was when the Alcestis was being displayed. Theo introduces himself to the gallerist, Jean-Felix Martin, explaining that Max Berenson suggested the two should meet. Jean-Felix promises to answer Theo’s questions, making it clear that he does not think highly of Max.
Symbolically, the empty gallery shows how little care Alicia has actually received from the public: though everyone was fascinated by her work in the immediate aftermath of the murder, only Theo remains invested in her over the long term.
Themes
Jean-Felix tells Theo that he and Alicia were friends from art school; when her paintings became successful, Jean-Felix opened up the gallery, and their professional relationship blossomed. Jean-Felix has always resented Gabriel, feeling that he was self-involved and dismissive.
Paul Rose viewed Gabriel as possessive, and now, Jean-Felix paints him as cold and unkind. Maybe Alicia’s murder was motivated by a crueler side of Gabriel not revealed in the press (or in Alicia’s diaries, as of yet).
Themes
The day before the murder, Jean-Felix let himself into Alicia’s house (a fact that surprises Theo); she was behind on her work for the gallery’s exhibition, and Jean-Felix wanted to see how things were going. Though he does not think there was anything off about Alicia’s mental state, Jean-Felix notes that Theo is behaving more like a “detective” than a therapist. Jean-Felix offers to show Theo some of Alicia’s paintings.
If Jean-Felix describes Gabriel as suspicious, however, he cannot make himself out to be totally innocent—he is too invested in Alicia, too willing to enter her private space, and too ready to profit off her art. And at the same time, Theo is also crossing some boundaries, which Jean-Felix names here: despite Diomedes’s advice to do the contrary, Theo continues to treat Alicia as a mystery to be solved, not primarily as a patient.
Themes
