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Part 2, Chapter 22
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
Theo goes to meet Diomedes in his office. Diomedes practices his harp, and he predicts that it will snow later that night; Theo thinks the clouds look more like rain clouds. After some small talk, Theo presents Diomedes with a copy of the play Alcestis. He hopes that Diomedes, being Greek, might have some insight into how the play relates to Alicia’s case.
The contrast between Theo and Diomedes is a stark one: while the former is single-minded and obsessive, Diomedes actively works to diversify his pursuits. It is also good to notice that snow, so deeply associated with Theo’s happiness, hangs in the air—but Theo is skeptical that either the snow, or his moment of joy, will arrive.
Themes
Theo does not understand why Alcestis is silent in the end. Diomedes explains that she is overcome with emotion—“have you ever been betrayed?” he asks Theo. In other words, Diomedes believes that when Alcestis returns from the dead, she is filled with murderous rage at her husband’s betrayal.
More than just diagnosing Alicia's silence as a reaction to betrayal, Diomedes unwittingly forces Theo to link Alicia’s trauma to his own: Theo has been “betrayed,” by Kathy, and that betrayal is still fresh. For the first time, Theo begins to understand Alicia’s present as intersecting with his own, as he begins to see their parallel rage in a new light.
Themes
As Theo ponders this analysis, he makes one more request: in order to bring Alicia “back to life” (like Alcestis), should they not give her access to paint, the one thing that allows her to express herself? Diomedes tells Theo that Alicia can paint if her art therapist, Rowena Hart, agrees to it—but he predicts that Rowena will be staunchly opposed.
In suggesting that Alicia needs to be brought “back to life,” Theo also suggests that she has been metaphorically killed. This idea of symbolic or psychic murder will become essential to Theo’s therapeutic practice as he spends more time with Alicia.
Themes
