57 pages • 1 hour read
Mary Downing HahnDeep and Dark and Dangerous
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007A 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
The Cost of Secrets
Deep and Dark and Dangerous is centered on a decades-long secret kept by sisters Claire and Dulcie. To keep their involvement in Teresa’s death hidden, Dulcie swore her younger sister to secrecy, but their silence has come with a cost—not only for them and their families, but also for the residents of the Sycamore Lake area. Hahn makes the enumeration of these costs one of the novel’s central themes.
When Ali discovers the photograph and starts asking questions, Claire lashes out at her because her inquisitiveness threatens to puncture the tenuous shroud Claire has kept over her past with Teresa. For Claire, especially, the toll of keeping this secret has been enormous, resulting in issues with her health. Although a sensitive child even before the incident, Claire becomes even more so afterwards, experiencing physical and mental health issues like severe headaches, anxiety, stress, and depression—the latter of which required clinical treatment. In Claire’s example, Hahn represents both the psychological and physiological ways that the toll of keeping such secrets can manifest.
The sisters’ secret also threatens the safety of the next generation of Thorntons to visit the lake. The irony of not knowing who Teresa was or what she looked like is that Ali and Emma are unable to recognize her ghost in the form of Sissy. By concealing the truth from their children, Claire and Dulcie leave them vulnerable to dangers of the lake, and of Sissy’s revenge. Ali and Emma come perilously close to drowning and paying the ultimate price for their mothers’ secrecy.
Perhaps the cruelest consequence of Claire and Dulcie’s secret is the pain Teresa’s family experiences not knowing what happened her. With Mr. and Mrs. Abbott dead, Linda is the only relative left to account for the toll the grief has had on their family. When she arrives at the cottage, her pain still feels immediate and raw, not at all blunted by the passage of time. Rather, her anguish has only been amplified by the 30 long years without the truth.
Unfinished Business
Hahn’s main characters in Deep and Dark and Dangerous wrestle with their unresolved issues throughout the course of the summer. These issues primarily concern Teresa and the unfinished business that is keeping her anchored to the lake, but they relate to Dulcie and Claire as well. Dulcie’s unfinished business at Gull Cottage not only draws her to spend the summer there but is also the inspiration for “a series based on the lake and its moods” (32). She speaks about the lake having captured her, as well as a hope that through her art she can free herself from it. Her return, and the reluctant arrival of Claire, to Sycamore Lake allows Teresa to address the precise reasons she remains tethered to the lake.
Sissy is the typical restless spirit, appearing in the condition she was when she died—in the faded blue swimsuit and wet hair—and unable to move on because of the unfinished business of an unresolved perceived wrong. In Sissy’s case, she is seeking justice for what she feels was her wrongful death at the hands of Claire and Dulcie, and for the truth of what happened to be told. Sissy believes her death was “murder,” and her version of justice involves the sisters being punished for their actions. Stuck in the body and place where she died, Sissy is unable to see the effect that her death has had on Claire and Dulcie. She assumes they have been living entirely unaffected by their actions, but because the sisters never returned to the cottage, Sissy has no idea how incorrect her assumptions are. When Ali explains that “Dulcie’s never forgotten a single detail of that day. Neither has Mom. In fact, Mom feels worse than Dulcie. In a way, it’s ruined her whole life” (157), Sissy discounts Dulcie and Claire’s experiences because her own suffering is on such a larger scale. Learning about their pain therefore fails to bring Sissy’s frustrations any closer to resolution. It is only after Dulcie tells the truth and faces scrutiny from the Webster’s Cove public that Sissy feels satisfied and begins to release her anger, even showing a genuine smile.
Forgiveness and acceptance are also part of the unfinished business Sissy needs to take care of move on—forgiveness not only of Claire and Dulcie, but of herself. She never interacts with Dulcie directly, so Sissy must receive her apology from Ali, who says Dulcie wishes she hadn’t thrown Edith into the water. In that moment, Sissy, while nodding, can admit that diving in after Edith “was a dumb thing to do” and accept that no one person was at fault for her death (184).
The Effects of Alienation
Hahn uses Sissy, Dulcie, and Emma to represent the difficulties that feeling alienated can have on individuals, especially when experienced at a young age. For instance, Linda often ditched Sissy to spend time with her friends without her bothersome younger sister. As a result of her isolation, she became unhappy and sour with everyone she encountered. These traits, born out of frustrated loneliness, became central to her personality. This sourness in turn led to Sissy’s shunning by residents of the area, who found her personality grating. In the end, she becomes attached to two visitors to Sycamore Lake, Claire and Dulcie—the same ones who played a part in her accidental drowning—who are the closest thing to friends she ever made.
Dulcie’s own feelings of alienation are key to understanding the anger that builds to the point that it explodes in the moment she throws the doll in the water. Dulcie felt alienated by her mother because she interpreted the additional attention Claire’s ill health required as preferred favor from their mother. Dulcie’s jealousy and resentment of Claire lead her to emotionally abuse her sister and eventually to join with Teresa to play keep-away with Claire’s prized doll. Although Dulcie does not repeat her mother’s mistakes and is affectionate with her own daughter, Emma still feels isolated. In Emma’s case, her isolation comes from being an only child to a mother with a circle of creative adults and few children. Her lack of age-mates leads to an intense and desperate loneliness that leaves her vulnerable to manipulation by Sissy.
Related Titles
By Mary Downing Hahn
