59 pages • 1 hour read
Lucinda BerryThe Perfect Child
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A 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
Medicine and Psychiatry
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, graphic violence, death, animal abuse and death, and mental illness (including postpartum psychosis and reactive attachment disorder).
Medicine and psychiatry are the central motif in The Perfect Child and even furnish the novel’s setting: The story begins in a hospital as Hannah works a shift as a nurse, and Christopher works at the same hospital as a surgeon. Janie is introduced when Christopher meets her at the hospital, and Janie has to go through an intense surgery that Christopher himself performs. In this sense, Christopher’s profession hints at The Sinister Side of Unconditional Love; he is overly invested in his patients’ welfare to the point that he cannot see them objectively.
Later, Janie starts seeing Dr. Chandler, whose advice and work with Janie help her to a degree, but only prior to Cole’s birth. Dr. Chandler’s failure to see the signs of danger in Janie means that Janie never really gets the help she needs until she is sent to a residential home. Hannah also ends up developing postpartum psychosis and spending several weeks in a psychiatric hospital. She is heavily medicated and becomes someone Christopher no longer recognizes. The novel therefore paints an especially critical portrait of psychiatry and its ability to help those experiencing mental illness or trauma.
Violence
The motif of violence illustrates the unknown risks of parenting a child, underscoring the darker side of The Desire to Be a Parent. It is clear that Janie comes from a violent background even before her involvement in her mother’s murder is uncovered; she is found covered in blood, and a history of abuse and neglect quickly surfaces. When Janie is brought home to live with the Bauers, Piper warns them that Janie might act out in unexpected ways, hinting at violence’s potential to breed more violence, but nothing prepares them for what they witness and endure. Dr. Chandler notes that Janie exhibits all the signs of reactive detachment disorder, which affects a child’s ability to form close relationships. Janie bonds with Christopher, but anyone who reminds her of her mother is instantly and violently rejected. Janie acts out toward Hannah and Cole, hurts and then kills her cat, and eventually murders Allison. Janie’s violent tendencies also cause strain in Christopher and Hannah’s relationship, developing the theme of How Parenting Changes a Marriage.
The Dog Collar
Janie is found wearing a dog collar. Becky did not want to be a parent and struggled to care for a child with Janie’s needs. After calling Child Protective Services several times without receiving help, she resorted to extreme means to control Janie’s behavior, leashing her like a dog. Since Janie’s nature is ambiguous as the novel ends—she may have a disorder that mutes her capacity for empathy, or she may be a literal demon—the collar is itself ambiguous. If the former is the case, the dog collar is a symbol of trauma, dehumanization, and the severe abuse that exacerbated or even caused Janie’s mental health condition. If the latter is true, it is a warning of what Janie was capable of—a symbol of her own danger. Either way, it is a symbol of evil.
