A Flicker in the Dark

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of prescription drug addiction.

A symbol of her trauma, Chloe Davis’s childhood home serves as the setting for not only Chloe’s happy memories but also her most traumatic. Willingham features Chloe’s home heavily throughout Chloe’s exploration of her past. In the backdrop of her memories and dreams, the home provides the setting for Chloe’s disillusionment and loss of innocence. The woods behind the home represent the murders committed by her own family while the wooden beam in her mother’s closet represents her mother’s suicide attempt and abandonment of Chloe. Each element of the home triggers a painful memory within Chloe that leads her to avoid the home for years. As a result, the home has morphed into “a house that nobody visits, nobody touches. A house that’s considered haunted” (304). The neglected condition of the home symbolizes Chloe’s own internal condition; like the house, Chloe neglects her needs by avoidIng the past and numbing herself with prescription medications and alcohol. She attempts to create a new home for herself but keeps finding herself drawn back by memories of her childhood. No longer able to ignore her past, Chloe drives to Breaux Bridge and faces her fears by arriving at the eerie home in search of Riley.