50 pages • 1 hour read
JP DelaneyThe Girl Before
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A 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
Austere Spaces
The “pristine blankness” (51) of One Folgate Street features significantly in the plot of The Girl Before. Each of the characters interacts differently with the emotions that such an empty space elicits. Jane appreciates “how sensual less could be” (52), and, early on, Emma begins thinking that by ditching her “useless stuff” (82) to live at One Folgate Street, she could also ditch her relationship with Simon. Later, Carol references having a clean slate, which is reminiscent of the cool stone interior of One Folgate Street. The house, to some extent, represents a blank slate for a person to develop on or in, as they try to recover from trauma.
Pearls
Early on in his relationship with each woman, Edward gives them an expensive pearl necklace. Both Jane and Emma describe receiving the necklace with joy and awe. Jane describes the unusual “pale cream” color and “opalescent shimmer deep in the nacre” (117) while Emma explains that she’s “always wanted a pearl choker […] and here it is” (121). The necklace is described as being like a “collar” (121) and “tight” (118) so that Jane first feels “strangled by the lack of give” (118). Jane also describes that the color itself mirrors the color of the walls at One Folgate Street. Edward’s repetitive behavior of giving each woman an identical pearl necklace fits with his controlling, perfectionist personality. The tightness of the necklace also reflects his preclusion for sex, in which he is the dominant partner.
As Jane begins investigating Emma’s death with more fervor, she also begins wondering if Edward is Emma’s murderer because of a pearl she finds in the shower at One Folgate Street. Jane is puzzled by where this small pearl came from, because the string on her necklace “isn’t broken” (268) and she visits a jeweler, who explains “keshi pearls […] are the rarest pearls of all […] com[ing] from oysters that had more than one pearl—twins” (270). The two necklaces are both made up of pearls that are “twin” pearls, heightening the duality between Emma and Jane’s lives.
Later, when Simon traps Jane in One Folgate Street, she both uses the pearls as an excuse to get upstairs, saying she has to put them away, and uses them to save her own life. Jane flings “the handful of pearls” (315) at Simon’s head and he trips, falling down the stairs. The recurring presence of the pearl necklace and individual pearls is a visual reminder of the connections between Emma and Jane, as well as being representative of the way that something small and vulnerable, like Emma and Jane, can be powerful and dangerous.
The Crawlspace
Most of One Folgate Street is clean, smooth, and designed with modern amenities. Both Emma and Jane discover a small cleaning closet, and above it, access to a crawlspace and attic that run the length of the house. When Jane discovers it, she finds a dusty sleeping bag, “girlish pajama bottoms” and “[s]ome balled-up socks” (86). These items are a sharp contrast from the other parts of One Folgate Street, even the closets, where tenants are expected to fold “according to the precise method of a Japanese guru” (167-68). Jane describes finding the items as “strange and inexplicable” and wonders “what nameless fear caused [Emma] to leave that beautiful, sleek bedroom and sleep up here instead” (87).
Simon also reveals to Emma shortly before her death that he has been staying “upstairs […] in the attic” (282) so that he can be “near” (282) her. His use of this hidden feature of the house allows him to continue his obsessive behaviors. It seems that the crawlspace and attic represent people’s more primal behaviors: Emma uses it to try to hide from the house in her deepest fear, and Simon uses it to fulfill his violent, lustful desires. Towards the climax of the novel, Jane hides in the crawlspace, terrified, and then decides that she will leave and face her fears. Jane’s willingness to face the potential danger outside of the crawlspace shows how different in character she is from Simon or Emma.
The Color Red
In contrast to the cool tones of most of the color references in The Girl Before, the color red only shows up as a foreshadowing, or actual image, of violence. The tulips out on the table when Emma and Jane tour the apartment are “blood-red” (12), yet everything else is described as pale or cream-colored. Later, Emma experiences two instances of threatening behavior: once, a teenager throws a bucket of paint at the “pristine pale stone” (228) of One Folgate Street creating “a red gouge, like a giant bleeding gash” (228); on the second occasion, Emma finds her kitten, Slob, “a mess of bloody fur” (258) in the garden. Both of these red images appear before something more violent happens to her.
Red also appears as Jane bears witness, figuratively, to Emma’s death and then as Jane watches Simon die. Jane imagines Emma “lying at the bottom of the stairs with her skull smashed in… Is that a faint outline of a bloodstain, long since scrubbed clean?” (85). The question of whether or not the “bloodstain” is visible foreshadows Simon’s later fall down the stairs, when Jane watches “the blood [seep] from the back of his head” (315). In a clean, pale house like One Folgate Street, anything red links to violence.
