67 pages • 2 hours read
Ruth WareIn A Dark Dark Wood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
This chapter switches back to the present time, when Nora is in the hospital. The unknown events distress Nora, and she wonders about her part in the accident: “The doctors ask me questions I can’t answer, tell me things I can’t remember” (46). After many tests, the hospital staff leave Nora in her room alone, though Nora can see a police officer stationed outside. Concerned, she wonders why the officer is guarding her.
Nora sleeps, dreaming of blood pooling around her and spreading across the floor. She wakes up and realizes that she has dressings, cuts, and scratches all over her body. She also finds a huge bruise on the front of her shoulder, running down her arm. She struggles to identify the cause of her injuries: “I remember … I remember a car … I remember stumbling across broken glass … one of my shoes had come off…” (48). As she begins to fall asleep again, she suddenly has a mental image of a gun hanging on a wall. She recalls now that the bruise resulted from the recoil of having fired a gun.
Chapter 6 Summary
Back at the Glass House, everyone waits for Clare to arrive. Nora decides to go for a run, even though it is getting dark. Nora regularly runs outdoors to relieve her anxiety. Nina thinks it’s unwise for Nora to go out in an unfamiliar area when it’s dark, but Nora is desperate to get out of the house. She feels trapped at the house and regards her attendance as a mistake.
Nora is immensely relieved to be out in the fresh air, running through the woods: “No questions, no one prodding and poking, just the sharp, sweet air and the soft thud of my feet” (54). When Nora runs, she holds on to a mantra, some word that describes what is bothering her. This mantra, now “Clare, Clare, Clare,” repeats in her mind.
Nora, following Flo’s directions, runs until she comes to a road. Soon, Nora hears a car coming and moves aside to let it pass. To her surprise, the car stops. Nora shines her light into the car and sees Clare behind the wheel. Clare looks at Nora in disbelief and asks, “What are you doing here?” (57).
Chapter 7 Summary
Nora wonders if her invitation to the hen do was an accident. Nora stammers that she is there for Clare’s party, to which Clare laughs. Clare clarifies that she knows and is wondering why Nora is out on a dark, cold night. Nora replies that she is out for a run, suddenly realizing that it is very cold.
Clare offers to give Nora a ride. Nora gets in the car, thinking that Clare is as beautiful as ever. The women fall into an awkward silence. Clare says, “Long time no see. But God, I mean…it’s good to see you, Lee, you know?” (59). Nora wants to tell Clare that she is no longer “Lee” and that her decade-long absence is not Clare’s fault. Nora especially wants to ask Clare why she invited her to the weekend party, but Nora is unable to speak.
Clare initiates small talk and asks about Nora’s work as a writer. Nora feels so uncomfortable that she can barely answer. She manages to ask Clare about her own work. Clare replies that she does PR for the Royal Theatre Company, and Nora thinks this position is perfect for her calculating nature: “Clare was always amazing at spinning a story, even at twelve. Even at five” (60).
Clare says that she is sorry that they lost touch and reminisces about all the “first” things they did together. They pull up to the house, and Nora can see the others inside, looking like actors on a stage, just as Tom imagined. Painfully, Nora tells Clare that she is not “Lee” anymore, that she goes by “Nora.” She then asks Clare why she invited her to the hen do. Clare hesitates, seemingly uncharacteristically nervous, and replies, “Because I thought you deserved to know. Deserved to be told—face to face. […] It’s about—It’s about who I’m marrying” (63). Nora presses her, and Clare finally replies that she is marrying James.
Chapter 8 Summary
The news of Clare’s husband-to-be dumbfounds Nora. Although Nora does not respond, she feels like she is screaming on the inside. Clare hurriedly tries to explain that this is why she did not invite Nora to the wedding, thinking it would be too hard on her. Clare continues, stressing that she wanted Nora to come to the hen do so that Clare could tell her the truth in person. Nora realizes that “William Pilgrim” on James’s Facebook page is a pseudonym, a reference to the main character of his favorite book.
Clare defiantly maintains that she has nothing to apologize for and offers that she and James would like Nora’s blessing. Nora realizes that their friendship is now completely in the past and bites her lip to stifle her feelings. Flo then opens the door of the house and calls out to Clare. Clare happily greets Flo, hiding the emotions of the previous moment. Nora narrates: “I thought, not for the first time, what an amazing actress she was” (66). The three women go into the house.
Nora goes up to her room and lies on the bed, overwhelmed with the news that Clare is marrying James. She thinks about how she has spent the last 10 years trying to forget James, building a new life, and finding friends that knew neither James nor Clare: “I was beholden to no one—emotionally, financially, or in any other way. And that made me feel fine. […] And now this” (67). Nora recognizes that she never emotionally moved on from James, and because of this, she hates both James and herself.
Nora goes to shower and looks out at the dark woods from the bathroom windows. She feels strangely exposed. After she showers, she tries to put on some makeup to brighten up her white, grim-looking face. Flo calls up that they are ready to eat, and Nora tells her she will be right down.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
In Chapter 5, the narrative briefly shows Nora in the present day. In the hospital, she is still unsure of what has transpired. Cliff continues to build both tension and mystery as Nora grapples with her puzzling reality. The succeeding chapters resume with the hen do in the immediate past. Nora, feeling anxious about the other guests’ questions dredging up her past, decides to escape the house and go for a run. Thoughts of Clare preoccupy Nora’s mind, and running is a reprieve from the Glass House and other attendees.
Clare upends Nora’s relief when she drives up unexpectedly. Rather than feeling glad to see Clare, the weight of her past overwhelms Nora: “She was just as beautiful as ever. […] I had always felt like the poor relation in comparison to Clare. Ten years had changed nothing, I realized” (59). The repeated negative connotations of their past friendship indicate that Nora also has unresolved feelings toward Clare. Cliff presents Nora’s perception of Clare as ambivalent, fluctuating between distant admiration and resentment.
The reader gets glimpses of what transpired between Nora and her school friends, though the narrative does not specify what exactly happened. As in the previous chapters, Nora demonstrates that she has unsuccessfully tried to leave the past behind her. When Nora questions why Clare and James desire Nora’s blessing, Clare reveals that she also views their friendship as a thing of the past: “‘Because you were my friend! My best friend!’ Were. We both registered the past tense at the same time, and I saw my own reaction registered in Clare’s face. I bit my lip, so hard that it hurt” (65). Clare’s response wounds Nora, indicating that Nora still carries a substantial amount of heartache regarding their shared past.
When Nora is alone again, the narrative implies an unfinished element to Nora’s relationship with James, something which she has tried to repress: “I’d spent ten years trying to forget James, trying to build a chrysalis of assurance and self-sufficiency around myself” (67). Nora feels self-loathing over her inability to let go of her feelings for James, and she regrets attending Clare’s party.
In Chapter 8, Nora reveals that James’s pseudonym, William Pilgrim, is a reference to his favorite book. Cliff uses this pseudonym as an allusion to Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, a science fiction novel in which the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is “unstuck in time.” The satirical anti-war novel portrays a former POW who travels through time as he grapples with PTSD and the horrendous experiences of WWII. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy is an unreliable narrator whose story reveals itself primarily through flashbacks, similar to Cliff's nonlinear structure of In a Dark, Dark Wood. Vonnegut’s novel repeatedly underscores Billy Pilgrim’s impending death, and Cliff uses this allusion to signify that James will die.
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