The Lying Game

Unlike Tide Mill, Salten House is a formal, manicured, imposing building, painted stark white and black. Salten is a study in sharp contrasts: things are literally black and white, from the building itself to the structure and expectations within. There is no middle ground in the discipline the girls receive for their delinquent behavior, and few choices they can make for themselves. As Fatima notes, Salten House is a “very classy prison” (35). It also represents a formal community: something the girls reject. Salten’s architecture reflects its educational philosophy. At the unconventional Tide Mill, under Ambrose’s gentle tutelage, the girls’ education in life lessons is experiential; more unstructured and organic. Salten operates on routine and structure. It is an inorganic learning environment, one of “sterile conformity” (76). Returning for the alumnae dinner, Isa notes that the paint scheme of Salten are softer, from the harsh white to a warmer white, and planters relieve the forbidding exterior. The physical change corresponds to a shift in philosophy: Miss Weatherby apologetically tells Isa that times have changed, and now the school would handle girls’ offenses differently. 

Water is a symbol of concealment and, by extension, cleansing. The waters of the Reach are deep and inexorable: They will eventually carry away the Tide Mill, and the girls’ lies. Isa has always feared “what might be lurking in the waters” (61). The dark waters represent Isa’s psyche. She conceals her lies and her crime, fearing to examine her thoughts too closely. When Kate pulls Isa underwater as they go skinny-dipping, Isa fears the “cold, strong grip that jerks me down, deep, deep into the Reach” (63). Kate’s “I need you” call for help does drag Isa down into her guilty thoughts and memories of the night they conceal Ambrose’s body.

Isa says that water hides “the evidence of what we’d done” (184) that night, but it does not cleanse the girls of their crime. Seeing the water of the Reach below the walkway, red with sheep’s blood, Isa knows it is “no longer a friend” (84); the bloody water accuses Isa, reminding her again of their crime. Similarly, Isa attempts to wash away the bloody note, but like Lady Macbeth, cannot cleanse the guilt she feels.

Water conceals safety and denotes a treacherous path. When the high tide submerges the bridge, obscuring the walkway, it compromises Isa’s physical and moral footing. She chooses to be intimate with Luc, and feels as if she is “drowning, the waters closing over my head as a I sink, and I don’t even care” (307). Isa retreats into the depths of past desire, ignoring the demands of the present. Similarly, Isa’s guilt and fear make her feel as though she is walking on soft wet ground, sinking into mud that conceals the “way back” (272).

Isa senses that the ocean takes Kate and Luc and the remnants of the Tide Mill back into itself, freeing the women from their crimes. Isa thinks “Everything we did—all our mistakes, all our lies—they are being slowly washed away” (364). Water finally cleanses their sins and conceals them forever.

Spiderwebs and fishing nets, Isa notes, are both designed “to catch things” (103), and Isa feels caught in her own web of lies. The imagery of webs and nets is a recurring symbol of Isa’s deceit and her sense of guilt. Isa experiences different kinds of imprisoning webs. Old fishing nets literally decorate the town of Salten, which, because of her guilt, make Isa feel claustrophobic and paranoid. She feels confined by a tightening “web of secrets and lies that is closing in around me, dragging me back to a decades-old mistake that I thought we’d escaped” (93). Isa also feels threatened by the intricate social network of Salten, the “complicated web of local allegiances” (107) between the school and the village. Isa and her friends snub both groups, and both groups snub them in return, leaving them isolated and giving them enemies. 

Throughout the novel, Isa suffers from a sensation of choking, rendering her either barely able or unable to speak. These symptoms are physical manifestations of Isa’s sense of shame caused by feelings of guilt, a motif that supports the theme of the toxic effects of wrongdoing. Even as a girl in Salten House, Isa has a hard time telling the truth and being accountable for her actions. The truth literally chokes her. When Miss Weatherby confronts her about bullying the first-year students, Isa apologizes, “forcing the words out” because of a “constriction” in her throat (151). Isa has trouble taking responsibility for her actions. She claims that she “wanted” to tell Mary she was sorry for spreading rumors about Mark, but “couldn’t speak” (120, 119). She never apologizes. When Miss Weatherby shows her Ambrose’s drawings. Isa wants to protest her innocence, but again says nothing. Her choked silence reveals her humiliation and blame.