58 pages • 1 hour read
Ruth WareThe Woman in Cabin 10
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A 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 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
Lo takes a shower in the decadent cabin bathroom, with the door open so she can see the ocean from out her cabin window. Suddenly, the bathroom door slams shut, as if someone has pushed it closed, and Lo is stuck in the dark. Fumbling to turn off the shower, Lo scalds and then freezes herself, before cautiously opening the door. Her heart is pounding, but no one is in the room and her bedroom door is both locked and chained shut.
Lo scolds herself for being so anxious and not letting herself enjoy her vacation, pours herself a drink to calm down, and checks her email. She sends an update to her mother and to her friend, Lissie, and an apology note to Judah. Then, she gets dressed for dinner in one of the three evening gowns she has rented for the cruise. As she gets ready, Lo realizes she forgot her mascara–the thief who broke into her apartment had taken it when they stole her purse. Lo hears the water run in the cabin next door, and leaves her room to see if whomever is staying next to her has some extra mascara. When she knocks, she is greeted by a young, pretty, brown-haired woman in a Pink Floyd t-shirt who looks disturbed that Lo is there. She gives Lo her mascara and tells her not to return it. Lo is confused, but agrees. Back in her own room, there’s a knock on the door; it’s Karla, the steward, inviting Lo to dinner in the lounge.
Chapter 7 Summary
The presentation by Lord Bullmer is in an all-white, luxurious lounge. Lo notes how impractical white furnishings are on a public vessel. Lo then runs into Cole Lederer, the handsome journalist she met earlier who does work on the polar ice caps and Arctic environments. Cole flirts heavily with her. Lo is then interrupted by Ben Howard, a former coworker at Velocity. After the drink in her room, the champagne that Lo accepts from Cole makes her a little dizzy, and she becomes a bit too drunk to properly schmooze with the other journalists and financiers on board. While she is standing back and watching, Lo notices Anne Bullmer, who is wearing a headscarf and looking pale, almost grey. Ben Howard notes that Lady Bullmer has been struggling with breast cancer, and is quite ill. As the pre-meal schmoozing comes to an end, Cole propositions Lo, who declines and suggests he ask Tina, another journalist who came on strong in a conversation with Cole earlier that evening. Cole laughs and declines as the dinner bell is called. When Lo turns around, Tina is standing beside her, watching her warily.
Chapter 8 Summary
During dinner, Lo starts her first course sitting beside Chloe Johnson, an ex-model and wife of financier Lars Johnson, and Archer Fenlan, an expert in exotic travel. Chloe asks, concerned, about the bruise on Lo's cheek, and Lo explains the recent burglary. Chloe offers to help her cover it with make-up. During the second course, Lo sits with travel journalist Alexander Belhomme and Tina, who are talking about eating blowfish sashimi in Japan. The fish is deadly in large amounts, and certain parts of its body are so poisonous ingesting even a gram of it can kill a person. Tina encourages Lo about the possibility of a promotion because of this trip, and reminds her to enjoy her stay–she makes it clear that cruises like this are not only a perk of the job, but a once-in-a-lifetime experience. During dinner, Lo's thoughts continually return to the woman in the cabin next to her own. The woman isn’t present and the table has two extra places set, but they don't seem to belong to the woman in Cabin 10–one is for Cole's wife, who isn't in attendance, and the other is for Lady Bullmer, who was feeling ill and retired to her room early. Lo's fixation on the woman next door does not end even after the plates are taken away.
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
This section, in which Lo meets her companions on this week-long cruise, functions primarily as a means of introducing the reader to the other characters on board. The underlying tone however, is dark; in Chapter 7, Tina looks skeptically, and almost threateningly, at Lo, but then proceeds to encourage her in her career at dinner. The discussion of blowfish (or fugu) sashimi is both bizarre and eerie–Archer and Tina seem obsessed with the idea of ingesting the poisonous fish, as if the danger of the act is somehow indicative of a deeper interest in or desire for destruction. All the while, Lo is drinking too much, numbing herself to her environment in order to calm her nerves and appear normal. Lo's drinking indicates a larger theme of her inability to process the danger she's in. Again, water is a threatening place for Lo; in Chapter 6, she is in the shower when she fears that a slamming bathroom door means there is an intruder in her room. Both water and darkness are recurring images throughout these early chapters of the novel, and echo Lo's dream of a girl drowning.
Still, the ship hides this darkness. Lo's introduction to the woman in Cabin 10, after whom the novel is named, reveals secretive passengers, and Lo is not the only person confused about Anne Bullmer's presence aboard the ship, despite the severity of her illness. These hints of danger, illness, and secrecy only increase the sense of foreboding that Ware builds as the novel progresses.
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By Ruth Ware
