He is devastated: the love of his life– the center of his life– has so easily betrayed him for another man. One day after work, Theo comes home to see that his wife has committed a serious case of infidelity. Intertwined with Theo’s story, we follow a plot that occurs in the past (or what I call: the “driving plot”).
His repeated abuse and insults drove Alicia to the edge of instability and violence. With information coming in bits-and-pieces from Alicia’s cousin Paul, Theo finds out the truth of her family: that her dad was a terrible person. Making no progress in their sessions, Theo contacts Alicia’s family.
At first, Theo cannot get Alicia to talk at all they just sit together in silence until their sessions are over. In fact, he accepted the job at the Grove Institute of Psychology just to meet Alicia. She is sent to a psychiatric hospital– never to speak ever again.Īt this point in the book, we meet Theo, a promising psychologist who has a certain drive to help people, and plans to unravel her mystery. Shortly after Gabriel’s murder, however, Alicia paints a portrait of herself painting with what looks like blood, titled Alcestis. The one thing that’s certain is: no one knows Alicia’s story. After that moment, she never utters another word, and people speculate about her silence, wondering if she is simply perhaps, or perhaps a bit insane. After Gabriel is found dead, Alicia is charged with his grisly murder as she is the only one found at the scene of the crime. In the start of the book, we are given a prologue of what “happened” the night that Gabriel, the husband of Alicia (the ‘silent patient’), was found dead, tied to a chair. As the author periodically flutters between his past and present, we learn who Theo really is on the inside and how he fits in the overarching storyline. Throughout the book, we follow the thoughts of our protagonist, Theo. Perhaps what appealed to me the most in this novel was its premise: a murder by a mentally ill artist that never spoke after the crime. In this article, I’m going to break down the characters and plot, and explore the ending and an alternate meaning of the Silent Patient. Who doesn’t love thrillers mixed with a bit of Psychology (foreshadowing)? So, after a few hours of searching, I found it in the library catalog: The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides. I chose psychological thriller to read first for the sole reason that it sounded– for lack of a better word– cool. There are two genres of the kind: psychological thriller and contemporary. For my goal, I decided to read books that are in genres that I never read before. Honestly, I took the assignment to be more of an ultimatum than a goal. The first Homework assignment that she gave us as a class was to write a goal that we had in ELA. What originally compelled me to start reading “The Silent Patient” was my ELA teacher, Ms.