The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Throughout the novel, Aiden and Anna use chess pieces to communicate with one another. A chess piece “with Anna’s name carved into the base” (52) is one of the first clues Aiden receives that he and Anna have some sort of history together. Later, Anna explains that “we used these pieces in the last loop to identify ourselves. A bishop for you, Aiden Bishop, and a knight for me. The protector, like now” (289). The motif of the chess pieces reflects the simultaneous reality that they are trapped in a game, and also that they do still have agency and free will. While a chess player must abide by certain predetermined rules, they can choose which moves to make, and in what sequence. Likewise, as Anna and Aiden repeat loops of the game, they can try out different combinations of actions and gradually get closer to solving the crime. The motif of chess reinforces the theme that events are not random or meaningless, and that the ability to plan strategically can create positive impacts. In order to solve the crime, Aiden has to think like a chess player and plan out both his own moves, and the moves of the opponents working against him.

As the setting of the novel, Blackheath symbolizes the sinister and foreboding mysteries of the plot. Aiden is immediately repulsed when he arrives at the house, “hav[ing] the sense of having stumbled upon something sleeping, that uncertain light the heartbeat of a creature vast and dangerous and still” (5). While there is an initial grandeur to the house, upon closer inspection, “it’s a depressing ruin waiting on the mercy of a wrecking ball” (30). The depressing and decaying nature of the house symbolizes the dark secrets embedded in the plot, and particularly, the twisted history of the Hardcastle family. When Aiden arrives, the house has already been the setting for the brutal murder of a child; and by the end of the novel, “the dead piled up” (427). No one from the Hardcastle family survives because they are all undone by their lies, greed, and cruelty; their ancestral home foreshadows the future ruin of the family because it is a dark and depressing place teetering on the edge of ruin.

In addition to its role as the setting, Blackheath symbolically functions as a type of supernatural prison where the most violent criminals are sent to try and redeem themselves. The Plague Doctor reveals that “Blackheath was built to break devils” (382). Blackheath symbolizes the blurry line between punishment and rehabilitation, since it ostensibly exists so that criminals like Anna can redeem themselves, but no one actually wants to see her succeed and go free. Blackheath also symbolizes being trapped in the past because inhabitants literally repeat the same day over and over. Thus, when Aiden and Anna finally leave Blackheath at the end of the novel, they symbolically move into a more hopeful future.