103 pages • 3 hours read
Pseudonymous BoschThe Name of This Book Is Secret
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Secrets
Secrets are the most prominent motif in the novel. Within the narrative, secrets are both necessary and dangerous; they serve a simultaneously divisive and connective role. The Secret brings Cass and Max-Ernest together, but moreover, it predicates the reader’s connection to the story and the narrator. In this sense, secrets provide a framework for the secondary world and guide the narrator’s interactions with the reader.
Secrets are significant in the secondary Secret world. For one thing, it’s a secret world, a secondary world hidden within the ordinary one. Furthermore, its entire existence is predicated on the Secret. The Midnight Sun was formed to attain the Secret, while Pietro and the Terces Society work to protect it. Without the Secret, this secondary world would have no reason to exist. On a meta level, the book would not exist without the Secret either; the narrative is framed as a secret account about the Secret. The narrator is an arbiter of knowledge, withholding certain details for the reader’s protection but revealing others to ensure they’re prepared. Secrets, then, are a device through which the reader is implicated as a character in the narrative.
Secrets also manifest as riddles and codes. The act of breaking secrets with logic is a fundamental part of how the protagonists interact with the secondary world, as they only gain “entrance” into it by decoding. If they hadn’t figured out the code on the Symphony of Smells, they would never have known about the magician’s cry for help; and if they hadn’t cracked the code on the notebook, they would never have read Pietro’s story or discovered what Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L want with Benjamin Blake. The importance of codes is reinforced by the magician’s gift to Max-Ernest; the Decoder indicates that codebreaking and logic will be crucial in navigating this new world.
Synesthesia
Synesthesia is one of the most prominent motifs in the novel, and it supports the theme of personal differences being a source of strength. It is linked with artistic giftedness; characters in the novel who have synesthesia include Pietro and Luciano Bergamo, who are very talented magicians, and Benjamin Blake, who has won presidential awards for his abstract artworks. Synesthesia, the blending of the senses, represents access to a unique creativity or way of engaging with the world; while Benjamin, for example, is considered weird for his artworks, his synesthesia also makes him an artistic genius who receives significant recognition from adults. Synesthesia also allows certain characters to perceive others in a unique way that brooks revealing insights and enables special methods of communication between fellow synesthetes. Both Benjamin and Pietro experience Ms. Mauvais’s voice in dire terms (for Pietro, as icy water that makes him feel like he is drowning; for Benjamin, a cloud of gray smoke); this highlights the unique perspective synesthesia affords each individual. It also reinforces synesthesia’s role as a divergency from the norm that gives the individual personal power and agency; it allows both Pietro and Benjamin to navigate the Secret world, just as Cass and Max-Ernest’s unique traits help them do the same.
Synesthesia and the senses play an especially important role in the Secret world. Synesthesia, as “the confusion of the senses,” is treated as a gateway to the Secret, which is the key to immortality. The five senses also receive special emphasis; for example, the Midnight Sun’s treatments are all aimed at “bringing the senses back into harmony with each other” (204). Thus, the novel presents synesthesia as a way of engaging with the world that enables transformation, which designates the senses/synesthesia as a source of power and insight.
Cass’s Backpack
Cass’s backpack represents her survivalist ideology; it’s filled with things she believes will prepare her for any emergency. It includes items like a flashlight, a first-aid kit, a tool kit, a compass, matches, homemade trail mix, extra clothes, and rope (12). Cass usually forgets to include her schoolwork, a sign that being prepared for disaster is her top priority. This is underscored by the fact that Cass is very attached to her backpack and always keeps it near; even when she is in disguise at the Midnight Sun, she cannot give it up. When Dr. L destroys it at the end of the novel, Cass feels like “a part of her” (310) is destroyed, signifying that the backpack represents Cass herself.
Like Cass’s creed of survivalism, the backpack is at once a strength and an impracticality. Her rigid attachment to the backpack can be read as anxiety, especially since she prioritizes survivalism over things like schoolwork when there is no logical external reason to do so. Regardless, Cass keeps the backpack with her when she sleeps (109) and even wore it inside the house until her mother made her stop (50). However, once Cass enters the secondary world of the Secret and the Midnight Sun, her backpack contains the resources she needs to escape dangerous situations. Without the backpack, Cass and Max-Ernest may have failed to save themselves and Benjamin Blake. This is how Cass’s worldview functions in general: While it is a liability or hindrance in her ordinary life, as it engenders rigid thinking, obsession, and anxiety, in the Secret world it is a source of resourcefulness and ingenuity, ultimately leading to success. The backpack then symbolizes the simultaneous utility and impracticality of Cass’s worldview, as well as the balance Cass must find between the two.
At the end of the novel, Cass’s gift from the magician is a new backpack containing high-quality survival gear. This gift symbolizes Cass’s personal development, indicating that she is ready to progress to the “next level” in both the Secret world and in her character arc. The destruction of Cass’s previous backpack reinforces this, as it represents irrevocable change: Cass’s old self is gone, and she has fully entered the secondary world of the Secret. The new backpack reflects her transformation, indicating that she is ready to move forward with new knowledge and strength.
