The Guest List

Addiction is a motif that appears frequently throughout the novel in different ways. In the story, characters use their different addictions to cope with the demons from their past. Their addictions appear to be a symptom of their mental health struggles rather than the direct root cause of them. The addiction to alcohol and drugs is perhaps the most evident in this text. Johnno gets high numerous times in the novel, often leading him to the brink of a breakdown. When Johnno confronts Will about Darcey, he admits that he was fired because he was high during work. Johnno says, “Because it’s the only thing that helps me forget. See, it feels like my whole life stopped at that point, all those years ago. It’s like—it’s like … nothing good has happened since” (208). Johnno copes with the guilt of causing Darcey’s death by getting high. He is unable to move on from that moment and thus stagnates; this is especially clear in his lack of ambition and direction.

Olivia has a similar addiction to alcohol and self-harm. To cope with her own guilt for not alerting Jules to her history with Will, and her own struggle with mental health after the abortion, Olivia turns to alcohol to forget. On the night of the wedding, Olivia “pick[s] up half-full glasses, the remains of people’s drinks, and down them. [She] wants to get as drunk as possible” (231). After interacting with Will, Olivia wants to numb her disgust towards him and herself.

Olivia’s turn to alcohol here to forget functions similarly to her addiction to self-harming. Throughout the novel, Olivia constantly thinks about the razor that she keeps in her room and longs for it in moments of stress and turmoil. Olivia’s addiction to self-harming allows her a temporary relief the way that alcohol does. The physical pain distracts Olivia “so that for a moment nothing else exists” (37). Olivia and Johnno’s addictions provide them only temporary relief from the actual events that haunt them. Though they may try to escape the mistakes they have made, the past eventually catches up to them regardless.

The storm that rains down on the Folly symbolizes the reckoning that has come for the characters in the novel. The storm is described as a fierce act of nature that leaves the characters unable to do anything but submit to it. The storm forces the guests of the wedding inside the hotel and eventually also provides Aoife with a cover to cut the lights and find Will. Just as the storm is unavoidable, and unchangeable, so is the nature of Aoife’s desire to exact revenge for the death of her brother. The storm is directly linked to Aoife, especially when she chooses to hide the barometer the day of the wedding so that Jules does not see it. Aoife is aware that Jules, upon discovering that a storm is imminent, would be “More the sort to get angry and look for someone to blame. And I know just who would be in the firing line” (12). Jules, the perfectionist that she is, would blame Aoife for the storm. Though unable to control the storm itself, Aoife is very much responsible for the storm’s abstract symbolism; both Aoife and the storm thus stand for everything in Will’s past eventually catching up to him.