51 pages • 1 hour read
Ruth WareThe Turn of The Key
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
Heatherbrae House
Heatherbrae House serves as a symbol of family dysfunction and the fracturing of the family unit as well as the self. The house has been occupied by several different families, many of whom have experienced traumatic loss. The Elincourts remodeled it, leaving the front of the house with its Victorian architecture while updating the back to reflect a modern aesthetic. Rachel finds it disjointed and unsettling in its current state—likening it to “oil and water” (69). She compares it to a patient whose “unstitched, bleeding” (198) wounds are hidden beneath their clothing. The house’s neat façade masks the chaos within. The frenetic energy of the house is mirrored in the Elincourts’ dysfunctional family dynamic, as Bill’s extramarital dalliances have left the children in a constant state of rage and paranoia.
The house also represents the splitting of the self. Rachels describes Heatherbrae as giving “a strange feeling of split identity” (198). It tries “hard to be one thing” (198) but has been forced by the Elincourts to become another. Rachel experiences this struggle as she works to present herself as Rowan Caine, the perfect nanny, while fighting against her real identity as Rachel Gerhardt.
Like the house and the Elincourts, Rachel is fractured, split into different parts that have a difficult time coexisting. In many ways, the same can be said for Bill, who plays the role of dutiful husband and father while carrying on affairs with the nannies. Rachel sees the “beauty and luxury of the house” with “seeping poison underneath” (318) as a metaphor for her father. His split nature leads Rachel to conclude that “there was something sick in that house” (318). However, its sickness is arguably a reflection of all those who reside—and have resided—in it.
Rachel’s “R” necklace
Rachel’s “R” necklace is a symbol of her connection to her father. Until she arrives at Heatherbrae, she has worn it every day since Bill sent it to her for her first birthday. It marks the last contact between the two until Heatherbrae, and she says that from the moment she received it, she wore it “all the hours” she possibly could (314). When Rachel finally meets her father and his family and becomes intertwined in their lives, she slowly stops wearing the necklace. She takes it off for her interview with Sandra, then hides it in her shirt when she is introduced to Bill. She again removes it before her first night in the house, then realizes she can’t find it.
When she loses her only material connection to her father, her real-life ties to him also fade. A few nights later, when she is overcome with fear thinking about the little girl who died from the poison berries, she reaches for her throat and tries, she says, “to hold a necklace that wasn’t there” (171). Like her father, the necklace is absent when she needs it most. Eventually, Rachel finds the necklace on the attic floor among, she says, “the rest of the pathetic pile of detritus” (304). Although she is reunited with the necklace, it now sits with the other waste on the floor. It lies discarded and abandoned, like her relationship with Bill.
The Poison Garden
The poison garden reflects humanity’s dark and destructive nature. While lush and overgrown, the garden literally brings only harm or death. The garden is directly responsible for the death of the previous owner’s daughter and could have contributed to Rachel’s death as well. According to Ellie, Maddie tried to poison Rachel by putting berries from the garden in her wine, but Ellie stopped her by pouring the wine down the sink.
The garden is also a harbinger of the tragic fates met by the Elincourt family and a symbol of the poisonous, toxic emotions that have infected their lives. Rachel encounters the garden and its statue of Achlys, the Greek goddess of death, misery, and poison, shortly before Rhiannon returns home and events are set in motion that result in Ellie pushing Maddie off the roof. Rachel also picks a poison flower off the kitchen floor and puts it in water, not recognizing that it’s from the garden. On the night Maddie dies, she sees the flower in Jack’s apartment. She researches it and finds out it is, the source says, “one of the most toxic flowers native to the UK” (295). She then has a heated exchange with Rhiannon and later finds Maddie’s body and is taken to prison. According to Jean in her letter to Rachel, Sandra left Bill, who is embroiled in a lawsuit with an intern at his company. The wrath of Achlys and her poisonous plants is keenly felt by all.
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By Ruth Ware
