Deep and Dark and Dangerous

Hahn uses books to foreshadow details of the plot by sending clues to readers of what is in story for her characters. In Chapter 1, Ali finds a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl in a box with several other books brought home by her mother from her deceased grandmother’s house. The book tells the story of an impoverished young boy named Charlie who wins a golden ticket to visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. A day that seems destined to be a wonderful adventure turns into a wild and surprising one, just like Ali’s summer at Gull Cottage. The story also deals with themes relating to karma and appearances being deceiving, both of which feature in this story.

The book in which Ali finds the photograph, The Bungalow Mystery, is one of “at least a dozen” other Nancy Drew titles also in the box (1). Ali feels she “has long outgrown Carolyn Keene’s plots” (1), a comment that suggests she had been a fan of mystery stories in the past. Ali’s interest in the genre characterizes her as an inquisitive person and lays the groundwork for understanding her intense curiosity throughout the story. The Bungalow Mystery serves another purpose, foreshadowing the moment Sissy takes Ali and Emma out in the canoe. In that novel, Nancy Drew and a friend, Helen, are rescued from a lake after an unexpected storm causes their rowboat to overturn. The Bungalow Mystery has other parallels with Hahn’s work through Emma and Helen—who also cannot swim—and an imposter, like Sissy, who is exposed.

Of all the books mentioned in Deep and Dark and Dangerous, The Lonely Doll, which first appears in Chapter 2, features most frequently. It is an old favorite of Ali’s, but its significance to Emma is even greater because it is allegorical of her own life. Emma loves The Lonely Doll because she closely identifies with the loneliness felt by Dare Wright’s central character, Edith, who has no one to play with and prays for a companion. She says:

Edith is lonely like me, and she has blond hair like me, and she lives in an apartment in New York like me. And she wishes so hard for a friend that Mr. Bear and Little Bear come to her house just to be her friends. And that’s what I wish for, too. A friend. Somebody who likes me best of all (11).

As Edith’s prayers are answered with the arrival of the two teddy bears, so, too, are Emma’s when Sissy appears. Emma also shares Edith’s fear of abandonment, which results in her changing her behavior and accepting mistreatment from Sissy to keep her from leaving. This fear also provides context for Emma’s oversized attachment to the Edith doll and her willingness to risk her life to retrieve it from the lake even though she cannot swim.

Ali spends the summer trying to finish Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, which was assigned on her school’s summer reading list. In one storyline, the novel’s narrator, Scout Finch, her older brother, Jem, and their friend Dill are fascinated by their reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley. They imagine many fantastical scenarios about Radley and attempt to lure him out of his home. By the novel’s conclusion, Scout’s opinions on Radley have changed because she has learned more about him and considered what life must be like from his perspective. Ali undergoes a similar change in perspective, shifting from despising Sissy to empathizing with the anguish of her death and the frustrations in life that made her so bitter. The timing of Ali finishing To Kill a Mockingbird and her changing opinion of Sissy is also connected, with Hahn pacing Ali’s revelation to coincide with her reading about Scout’s.

After completing To Kill a Mockingbird, Ali starts reading A Separate Peace, a coming-of-age novel by John Knowles. It deals with two close friends, Phineas and Gene, whose rivalry results in Gene accidentally causing Phineas to become permanently disabled after he falls and severely breaks a leg. Gene confesses his role in his friend’s fall, and they row. Phineas eventually accepts his friend’s apology, realizing that the accident was just that and neither deliberated nor based on malice. The friends are then able to forgive each other. Again, Hahn references a popular novel with plot elements and themes that match those deployed here. Sissy and Phineas share an aggrieved feeling because they suffered as a result of the actions of a close friend. The forgiving of these wrongs creates another intersection point between these novels, with Sissy, Dulcie, and Claire needing to forgive either others or themselves—as do Phineas and Gene—to resolve their unfinished business.