Literary Analysis

Name: Manongsong, Loida P. Section: BSED ENGLISH 3201 Date:_

Parts Discussions
 Hook An anonymous philosopher once said, Darkness provides an
opportunity to prove what you're made of so you can better
rise to face the challenges of tomorrow.
 Author Gillian Flynn

 Title Dark Places

 Main characters Libby is the main character of the book. Libby starts the
book very depressed because of the murder that she
witnessed when she was 7. Libby never had anyone to take
care of her in life. She feels like she has no skills whatsoever
and doesn’t have the energy to try and get a job or go to
school. Libby has a hard time talking and connecting to
people.

Libby is a kleptomaniac, although by the end of the book

she’s trying to start paying for things again.
 A short summary Libby Day, the novel’s narrator and protagonist is the sole
survivor of a massacre in the fictional rural town Kinnakee,
Kansas. Libby reveals that several members of her family
were murdered when she was only seven years old. To make
matters worse, the alleged killer was her older brother, Ben.
After the murders of her two sisters and mother, in what
appeared to be a Satanic cult ritual, Libby escaped through a
window and later testified in court against her teenage
brother.

Libby has been living off inheritance money and the funds
that were raised to help take care of her after the murders
of her family members, given that she was so young. Now,
twenty-five years after the massacre, Libby is running out of
money and does not have any employable skills.
Lyle, who runs the Kill Club, approaches Libby. The Kill Club
is a group that is obsessed with studying crimes and
criminals. They are fascinated with Libby because many of
the members believe Ben is innocent. Lyle is willing to pay
Libby to speak with them, and she agrees because she needs
the money.

The club members, who are amateur investigators, bring up

a lot of details the police either missed or ignored, pointing
out that Libby’s testimony was forced, given that she did not
actually see any of the murders. It did not help that during
the 80s, everyone was afraid of satanic cults, and
supposedly, Ben committed the murders because he was
part of such a cult. The club members, however, believe her
brother is innocent of the crime. Through this investigation,
Libby learns of her brother’s secret girlfriend, Diondra, as
well as accusations against her brother for child molestation,
which negatively affected his reputation in town even if he
had not committed child molestation.

Interspersed with the modern day investigation are

flashbacks to the day of the massacre. These flashbacks are
told from the points of view of Libby’s mother, Patty, and
Libby’s convicted brother, Ben. Patty discusses the
difficulties of trying to keep the family farm while raising
four children alone; Ben tells his story of a troubled teenager
who gets mixed up with a bad crowd. These viewpoints paint
a picture of a grim life of desperate poverty, marital abuse,
and abandonment on the farm prior to the murder.
At first, Libby does not believe the club members, but she
needs to keep seeing the group because they are paying her.
After a few more visits, she finally gets up the courage and
agrees to see her brother in prison, something she has never
before done. After speaking with him, she starts to accept
that he is not the killer, but she knows he is holding
something back.

As time passes, Libby is slowly able to piece together what

happened. When she finds out about Ben’s former girlfriend,
Diondra, Libby manages to track her down. She meets not
only Diondra, but also Ben’s child, Crystal. Crystal lets it slip
that Diondra murdered one of Libby’s sisters because she
knew about the pregnancy. They try to murder Libby, but
she is once again able to escape.

With the help of Lyle, Libby is able to uncover additional

evidence about the crime. She learns that Ben and Diondra
were going to run away together to raise their child. They
stopped at the farm to take whatever money they could get.
At the same time, Patty had made a deal to arrange her own
death. She knew she could not care for her family, but if
they had the insurance money from her passing, she figured
they might have a chance. The murderer showed up at the
same time Ben and Diondra arrived at the house. Libby’s
other sister got caught in the crossfire, along with Patty. Ben
got blamed for everything because of his negative
reputation in town. He stayed silent because he wanted to
protect Diondra.

With everything they learn, Libby and Lyle are able to

present the new evidence to the police, and Ben is finally
freed from prison. Ben does not know what he wants to do
 with his life because he has been behind bars for so long. He
feels as if the world is still against him. However, he is
determined to make things work with Libby’s help. Libby is
finally able to move on from what happened that horrible
night. By the end of the book she, too, is hopeful for the
future.
 Thesis In Dark Places novel, Gillian Flynn effectively uses symbolism
to clearly convey the message of the novel.
 Analysis Gillian Flynn has a trademark writing style. The story is told
from three perspectives: Ben’s, Patty’s (the mother), and
Libby’s. Ben’s and Patty’s story spans only one day, the day
of the murders, while Libby’s takes place in the present and
spans about a week or two. The frequent jumping between
perspective and time period helps add a suspenseful
rhythm to the book. Every time the reader thinks they’re
about to stumble on a clue, Flynn flips to a different
perspective, which frustrates the reader but also gives
them more insight into the situation.

Each perspective functions like a puzzle piece because no

one, not even Ben, knows the full story on what happened
on the night of the murders. It’s the reader’s job to fit the
puzzle pieces together. With its suspenseful pace and
puzzle-like form, Dark Places is an entertaining and fun
book to read.

What I enjoyed most about Dark Places is the

characterization. None of the characters in Dark Places are
what we might call “good” people. Libby is a kleptomaniac
and a liar, she’s unambitious, angry, violent, and at times
manipulative. But she’s also intelligent, insightful, and
desperate to understand the truth about the night that
destroyed her life. A lot of people have praised Flynn for
writing female characters that aren’t pure good or pure evil.
Libby is a prime example of that. As a protagonist she’s not
lily white, but she’s not a villain either, which gives the
reader just enough room to root for her without feeling like
she’s suffocatingly perfect.

While Flynn is adept at writing realistic female characters,

her strength is in writing male characters. Ben Day’s
thoughts and emotions leap off the page. Like Libby, he’s not
a “good” person. He’s weak, cowardly, bull-headed, spiteful,
somewhat violent, and he’s made some morally debatable
choices. Even with all of those characteristics, Flynn still
encourages the reader to empathize with Ben. She wants us
to see him as that quiet, loner in your class, or the boy-next-
door who’s fallen in with the wrong crowd. The surrounding
characters in Dark Places all want to label Ben as one thing: a
 murderer, a Satanist, an innocent. But when she puts us in
Ben’s head, letting us be privy to his best thoughts and his
worst ones, she prods us to think deeper than those labels,
to defy the idea that a person can be defined by only one
characteristic.

 Conclusion To wrap it up, Dark Places is a mystery novel by Gillian Flynn

published in 2009. The novel deals with class issues in rural
America, intense poverty and the Satanic cult hysteria in the
1980s. Time will come we will be into a dark place of our life
and all we must do is face it and work out a solution on how
to get out of the dark place and how to get to the light.