The White Darkness Themes

Ah, man vs. nature—a classic literary theme. Man's struggle for survival against the elements is perhaps never felt so keenly as in the frozen desert of Antarctica. Even Sym, who finds the snowy...

To loosely quote the Cheshire Cat, most everyone is mad here. At just fourteen, Sym has had to deal with more than her fair share of people who are off their rockers in The White Darkness. Haunted...

There are no two ways about it: Sym is a very lonely young woman in The White Darkness. She has, like, two friends, one of whom she doesn't even like. It's not that she's a social outcast or anythi...

Like a lot of teenagers going through puberty, Sym finds sex to be a source of much angst—not because she wants to have it, but because she doesn't. Or at least that's how she feels at the beginn...

Like Antarctica, Sym's heart is a veritable graveyard in The White Darkness. She is haunted by three central deaths: her father's, Titus's, and the prospect of her own, which seems increasingly lik...

Sym knows her imaginary friend, Titus, isn't real, but talking to him helps her hide from the hard reality of her loneliness and her father's death. Sometimes, when faced with serious trauma, she r...

Whoa boy—the characters in The White Darkness are guilty of telling some real whoppers. Among the most egregious are Manfred and Sigurd Bruch, who are con men posing as Vikings, and Victor, who i...

Would you believe that a novel about Antarctica explores the theme of exploration? Yeah, of course you would. It almost seems mandatory. There are two main types of exploration in The White Darknes...