56 pages • 1 hour read
Ghosted
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Symbols & Motifs
Clowndoctors
References to the Clowndoctor charity that Sarah and Rueben form together are prevalent throughout Ghosted. Clowndoctors are a symbol of hope in dark circumstances. The connotation of clowns as trite entertainers is dispelled by this symbolism, primarily through Rueben’s descriptions of his training. Walsh presents imagery contrary to the stereotype of a clown when Sarah meets Rueben while he is drinking and smoking outside a children’s party at a Mexican restaurant. Amongst this discordant imagery, Rueben takes his practice seriously, telling Sarah, “I trained with Philippe Gaulier in France. I’m meant to be a theater practitioner, not a kids’ entertainer” (146). As they research hospital clowning and form their charity, Rueben studies with “psychotherapists, child psychologists, and theater practitioners” (148). Clowndoctors therefore take on symbolic significance as something that initially seems trite or simple but can be more complex and powerful than initial impressions suggest.
Clowndoctors represent the introduction of hope to dark circumstances. Ruth describes her most recent interaction with a clowndoctor: “Your people have never talked to me like I’m a kid. Last time I saw Doctor Zee, he said he was going to help me write a poem for my wake. He’s a great wordsmith when he’s not being a dick. Can you send him?” (194). The image of a clowndoctor helping a young woman write a poem for her wake again subverts typical expectations and suggests that even hopeless, terminal situations can benefit from hope. This mirrors the redemptive conclusion to the novel in the sense that hope, in the form of Eddie and Sarah’s son, can come from a situation that initially seemed hopeless and impossible.
Written Communication
Walsh develops a motif of various modes of written communication throughout the novel, which is initially closely connected with the psychological experience of being ghosted and develops to signal the difficulties of communicating and what is left unsaid. One reason for the humiliating feelings that ghosting can produce is that it involves being cut off across multiple media of communication. Sarah describes mobile phones as “instruments of psychological torture” (13-14), and she attempts to contact Eddie by phone, text, Facebook message, email, and a public Facebook post. The sheer number of types of written communication contributes to the uncertainty that characterizes having been ghosted, because even if “his phone was broken” (38), there always seems to be another possible mode through which communication could, but does not, occur. This underscores The Impact of Technology on Romantic Closure.
The letters from “me” to “you” initially create narrative ambiguity and drive the rising action toward the plot twist in the novel. After the letters are revealed to be from Eddie to Alex, they take on the symbolic connotation of what Eddie left unsaid to his younger sister. Eddie’s letter writing begins when his bereavement counselor suggests it as a coping method: “Write her a letter [...] Say the things you’d have said if you’d known what was coming” (277). By emphasizing the idea of what someone might say if they knew it was their last chance to communicate, Walsh highlights the regret that can be caused by not expressing one’s true emotions. Whether due to ghosting, death, or secrecy, Walsh connects the motif of written messages with the difficulty of relational communication and regret about what is left unsaid.
Natural Landscapes
Sarah exhibits a complicated relationship with place throughout Ghosted, and natural landscapes symbolize memory and rootedness. Sarah’s early impressions of Eddie are related to the landscape of the valley: “Eddie’s sense of place was so strong [...] It was almost as if he were a part of this valley, like an oak. Pieces of him would be flung into the wider world during season change or wild weather, but his core stayed in the earth” (83). While Sarah reports having loved the natural landscape in her youth, she feels disconnected from the landscape after the accident and her move to LA and expresses admiration for Eddie’s rootedness in the landscape. That the car accident took place in a pastoral landscape, and particularly that crashing into a tree caused Alex’s death, creates a paradoxical contrast between rootedness and loss.
Walsh also emphasizes a connection between natural landscapes and notions of memory and secrecy. Eddie suggests that the valley is “like a back pocket [...] where all sorts of stories and memories are shoved. Like old ticket stubs” (51). This simile of clothing close to his body reflects his intimate connection to the landscape. Sarah experiences “echoes” of Hannah in the landscape of the valley as well (52). Similarly, when Eddie tries to imagine Alex as an adult, he “remember[s] you’re not in that crazy house on a hill. You’re scattered in a peaceful corner of Gloucestershire, a quiet hum of memory where once was [her] sunbeam of a sister” (214). Walsh employs metaphor to characterize Alex through Eddie’s memory as a figurative part of the landscape before becoming a literal part of it through the scattering of her ashes.
Walsh concludes the novel with a return to the natural imagery that is connected to memory throughout the novel but eventually offers a release: “[A] tiny shower of butterflies flickers over the wild grass that surrounds [them] all, screening [them] off from the past, from the stories that [they] told [them]selves for so many years” (337). Walsh develops and complicates the symbol of natural landscape throughout the novel, as it functions to represent a sense of rootedness in memory, secrecy, and the connection between beauty and loss, then eventually provides a buffer from the past, enabling Sarah and Eddie to focus on the present moment.
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