50 pages • 1 hour read
JP DelaneyThe Girl Before
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Psychoanalysis and Repetitive Behavior
The shifting structure of the narrative in The Girl Before causes a repetition of plot points and imagery. The mirroring experience is heightened by references to repeated actions, behaviors, and objects. In addition, Delaney frames the novel with four epigraphs, each of which references repetition, from lovers who “always repeat themselves” to signature killers who engage “in repetitive behavior” to “letting images repeat and repeat” (1). In conjunction with the plot, these epigraphs create the sense that the novel intentionally builds using repetitive imagery and behaviors in order to reach a larger emotional conclusion.
Delaney’s use of a therapist to reveal other key aspects of the plot develops the sense that psychoanalysis can help humans understand why people behave the way they do. Carol’s frequent diagnoses, whether of Edward’s narcissism or Emma’s pseudologia fantasia, suggest that psychotherapists are capable of understanding our behaviors and analyzing them successfully. That said, Carol is also wrong about Edward’s behaviors, implying that it is only with honest, appropriate information that psychoanalysis is effective.
By structuring the novel so that interactions and images repeat over and over, Delaney builds suspense and changes how characters are perceived. This repetition is especially intense at the beginning of the novel, so that the reader experiences One Folgate Street almost simultaneously from two perspectives. Although Jane and Emma’s narratives then depart from one another, they merge again for their specific moments: their first experiences dating Edward, their break-ups with Edward, and the deaths of Emma and Simon. Each character unknowingly sees “without observing” and repeats “without knowing” (1), so that the plot happens over again, with different people playing the same roles.
Even Jane, who, to some extent, breaks the repetitive cycle, also engages in a second pregnancy even when it is suggested that the pregnancy could be dangerous. But Jane decides that in order to have Toby, she is willing to leave Edward and One Folgate Street behind and makes a reference to Isabel as the “girl before” (334). In this jarring description of her stillborn child, Jane changes the way repetition functions in the novel, so that instead of considering Emma or Elizabeth Monkford as the previous “girl,” we are challenged to see Jane’s trauma as the central conflict of the plot and thus the title of the novel.
The Tension Between Order and Chaos
A tension between things being in order and things being chaotic is present throughout the novel. Each person who enters into One Folgate Street is challenged to conform to a rigid structure of self-order, one that challenges their pre-developed ways of thinking and being. Jane acclimates quickly “to the cool, expensive textures” (52) and “the calm” (69) whereas Emma struggles to control the “clutter” (88) that builds up no matter how hard she tries. Edward explains late in the novel that the house demands “a sacrifice from anyone who lived there” (329) because of how a person would have to adapt to the restrictive environment. Emma, in her messiness and out-of-control behaviors, is unable to adjust; Jane, on the other hand, is able to use the austerity of One Folgate Street to make herself stronger.
Male characters in The Girl Before also demonstrate the tension between order and chaos in their behaviors. When Simon finds out about Emma’s rape, he feels out of control and responds with chaotic, violent behavior. Similarly, Emma is able to manipulate Edward to fly into a rage by behaving in ways that defy his control. Although Edward apologizes to Emma, saying, “I lost control” (171), in this regard, he behaves similarly to Simon, who desperately asks Emma, “Why” (283), before killing her. Delaney suggests that when men are not able to have control of the people around them, they are often forced into a state of emotional chaos that can lead to violent responses.
The Capacity for Self-Improvement
One of the core underlying questions of the novel is whether or not humans have the capacity to change themselves. Housekeeper’s frequent psychological assessments, which serve as the chapter headings, are an attempt to measure whether or not someone’s internal thought processes can shift by adhering to the strict rules of One Folgate Street’s environment. This philosophical approach to architecture is espoused by Edward, who tries to convince his colleagues that “our future lies not in building beautiful havens from the ugliness in society, but in building a different kind of society” (128). It is Edward’s belief that architecture can serve as the vehicle for changing people’s behaviors, and he lives out this belief when he stays with both Emma and Jane at One Folgate Street. At the end of the novel, it seems that Jane is the only person to have fully benefited from the house’s effects, but the inclusion of a new tenant, Astrid, begs the question of whether the house could continue altering the lives of new inhabitants.
Life and Death
The novel is framed by Jane’s experience having a dead baby and her later experience of giving birth to Toby, who survives. In some ways, the entire plot serves as a backdrop to Jane’s process of grieving one lost baby and finding her way to having a new one. Early on, Jane describes “the horror of that casual inversion of the proper order of things, that hurts almost more than anything” (25) as she reflects on losing Isabel. As Jane adjusts to life at One Folgate Street, she is able to literally put her life back in “proper order” and begin preparing to be pregnant again.
Yet Jane is not the only character who experiences the tension between life and death. Emma, who lives on the edge as she oscillates between giving in to and resisting her anorexia, eventually is murdered at One Folgate Street; she also at one point is terrified when she finds her kitten murdered in the garden. Later, Simon is also murdered in the same fashion at One Folgate Street. Where Jane’s process is from death to life, Emma’s narrative goes from death to death to death.
