57 pages • 1 hour read
Alexis SchaitkinSaint X
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Beauty
In Saint X, the abstract idea of beauty is often used as a prism through which the theme of Awareness of Privilege, Class, and Race is seen. The first chapter spends a great deal of time on the beauty of the island, and the guests’ experiences of this beauty; the pristine nature of the island is often manufactured for the guests by the locals who work at the resorts. Beauty is also introduced as a source of danger, as in the island’s volcano that could erupt at any time.
The narrative also stresses Alison’s beauty as part of what makes her story compelling. As a beautiful white girl, Alison provides a compelling story for series like Dying for Fun, which capitalize on the public’s constant desire for titillation and violence. Later, the book describes a lot of ugliness and dirtiness in Clive’s daily life in New York. When he drives out of the city, the beauty he finds there immediately triggers thoughts of bitterness toward the privileged people who live there. He connects these people with Alison, and it changes the way he thinks about her and the events that shaped his life.
Dreams
Dreams have a special significance in Saint X. They symbolize a truth known only to the dreamer, which provides a key piece of the mystery. They also illustrate how the subconscious hides uncomfortable truths that can change a narrative once they are revealed.
Clive and Claire each have a dream that first appears ethereal and ambiguous but is later given a context that illustrates its importance in the story of Alison’s death. Clive dreams of waking up on the rocks on Saint X, and “everyone knows.” What they know is not revealed, but later it becomes clear that this dream represents the moment in which Alison discovers Clive and Edwin together on the nameless cliffs. The secret, then, is not about Alison’s death, but about Clive and Edwin’s intimacy.
Claire dreams that she’s a little girl again, and her sister is looking out at something across the water. Alison turns to her, and ominously says, “Shh. Don’t tell.” This suggests a secret may be hiding in the events preceding Alison’s death. In reality, this is a secret that Claire has hidden from herself, as she’s remembering the moment when Alison tells her she’s going to swim out to Faraway Cay.
The Woman on Faraway Cay
This folktale from Saint X returns as an important motif throughout the novel and has a strong influence on Claire, Clive, and Alison. This folktale is first revealed in a chapter about Clive’s early childhood on Saint X, and while the story scares him, it also represents a memory of his mother that he doesn’t want to let go. When his friends talk him into venturing onto Faraway Cay, he thinks to himself that “he should be past believing, but he couldn’t rid himself of the story” (161). This illustrates the very tangible effect and power of this story in Clive’s life. In the scene that follows, Clive lets go of this story, and therefore of his mother. However, this mythology comes to represent something different for him once Alison’s body appears beneath the waterfall at Faraway Cay.
When it’s revealed by Clive that Alison had a vision of the woman on Faraway Cay from the folktale in the days leading up to her death, Claire is able to retrieve a key memory that enables her to piece together what may have really happened that night. This in turn points to a major difference in the way Claire and Clive interpret this story; because a piece of Clive still believes in the folktale, there is an aspect of Alison’s death that appears folkloric—as the story goes, the woman on Faraway Cay lures people to the waterfall and drowns them. For Claire, she understands Alison’s death through the lens of Alison’s motivations, coming to a conclusion that supports her own myth—that her sister was murdered, and her body was hidden in the cay.
