68 pages • 2 hours read
Gillian FlynnDark Places
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009A 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
Darkplace
Darkplace is Libby’s name for her memory of the murders and is the basis for the novel’s title, Dark Places. The memories of Darkplace are graphic and visceral: “Maniacal smears of bright red sound in the night. That inevitable, rhythmic axe, moving as mechanically as if it were chopping wood. Shotgun blasts in a small hallway. The panicked, jaybird cries of my mother, still trying to save her kids with half her head gone” (10). The violence Libby witnessed as a child is always on the verge of returning if she lets her thoughts wander into the past.
Darkplace symbolizes Libby’s fear of confronting the past. Ironically, even Libby’s happiest family memories lead her mind to Darkplace. Thus, when the novel begins, all of Libby’s memories of her family—both good and bad—are off-limits to her. This psychological block is a coping mechanism for Libby, who has suffered severe psychological, emotional, and physical trauma, but it leaves her in a perpetual state of loneliness. The family members who remain are tied to the past and are therefore also off-limits: Libby has burned her bridges with Diane (or so she thinks), and she believes Ben to be a murderer. The more Libby tries to avoid Darkplace, the more she remains stuck in the past.
Only through her journey of investigating and coming to terms with her family’s murder can she reconnect with her family—both living and dead—without her mind going to Darkplace. Her visit to the Day family farm at the end of the novel is a full-circle moment that shows her growth. Darkplace isn’t gone: She must still “keep her brain steady” to stay away from Darkplace as she looks at the field (346). The difference is that now, her trauma does not define her. She can build new relationships and move forward while respecting her loss.
The Bloody Footprint
At the Kill Convention in Chapter 3, one of the members of Lyle’s group brings up the unexplained presence of a bloody footprint from a man’s dress shoe at the murder scene. An older man responds: “The police never explained a lot” (38). The footprint is a recurring motif that represents the ineffective police work that led to Ben’s arrest and the bias the town held against him. The footprint also foreshadows the discovery of Calvin Diehl—the Angel of Debt—and his role in the murders.
The fact that the footprint was of a man’s dress shoe is significant because none of the men in Kinnakee associated with the case wore dress shoes. They were farmers, workers, or teenagers. Runner and Ben are short in stature, and the bloody footprint was from a larger man.
The issue of the footprint recurs in Chapter 5, when Libby is speaking with Barb about her book. Barb mentions that the footprint was never traced. Barb believes the footprint is evidence of the crime scene’s contamination. She left it out of her book because it introduced doubt and did not contribute to the narrative of Satanic rituals as motivation for the murders.
A related motif is the spot of blood on Michelle’s bedsheet that, like the footprint, was never explained and did not fit with the narrative of Ben’s guilt. Ben’s defense lawyer insists that the bloody footprint and spot on the bedsheet are evidence of someone else’s presence at the crime scene, but before the era of DNA matching, there was no way to make sense of these seemingly random details. In the end, it is precisely these details—the bloody footprint and the spot of blood—that provide the keys to the identity of the real murderers.
Lisette Stephens
The disappearance of Lisette Stephens is an ongoing mystery in Libby’s present day, and its story unfolds parallel to Libby’s investigation into her family’s murder. Lisette’s story symbolizes the way the public latches onto a crime, particularly when it involves an attractive young woman.
Libby’s fund manager mentions Lisette’s case in Chapter 1, when Libby asks if people are still donating to her fund. “There’s always a new murder, I’m afraid […]. People have short attention spans,” he replies (8), indicating that the public views crimes like the Day murders and Lisette’s disappearance as entertainment as much as, if not more than, they care about the victims. This ties both Libby and Lisette to the theme of The Objectification of Victims in True Crime Culture.
Lisette’s disappearance showcases how women in particular relate to true crime. At the convention in Chapter 3, Lyle shows Libby the women huddled around the laptop to look at Lisette’s webpage. Whereas some of the men at the convention role play the murderers, most of the women relate to the victims. There is an element of voyeurism in people’s fascination with true crime cases, and Lisette’s disappearance reveals how women participate in that aspect of the culture.
Lisette’s disappearance is resolved in Chapter 29, when police find her at the bottom of a ravine. By the time her body is found, she has already been dead for quite a while. Even at the beginning of the novel, Libby knows that Lisette is already dead: “[E]veryone knew that by now, but no one wanted to be the first to leave the party” (8-9). Flynn does not reveal who is responsible for Lisette’s death, or whether it was an accident or a murder. This symbolizes the public’s interest in the mystery of crimes, rather than their sympathy for the victims; with Lisette’s body found and no interesting suspects, there is no longer anything to pursue.
In contrast to the public’s desire to draw out the search for an attractive middle-class woman is their desire to ignore the disappearance of girls who do not fit that description. In Chapter 9, when Libby returns to Kinnakee to visit Ben in prison, she sees flyers for two girls who have been missing since 2007 and 2008, respectively. Libby notes the disparity: “Both girls were unkempt, surly, which explained why they weren’t getting the Lisette Stephens treatment” (94). Though the missing girls never come up again the novel, their mention is a commentary on the need for all victims to receive justice.
Related Titles
By Gillian Flynn
