The Women in White Themes
by Sarah Pekkanen
Underneath the locked doors and psychic experiments, this novel is wrestling with what happens when women are treated as objects instead of people. It asks how isolation breaks us, how secrets shape us, and how trauma keeps its grip through smells and dreams. But it also shows the stubborn ways women reach for each other when everything else is designed to tear them apart.
On this page you'll find the major themes rooted in specific moments: the exploitation at the clinic, the fragile loyalty among the four women, the hidden lives they all lead, the pull of grief, and the uneasy tug between intuition and logic. You'll also meet the recurring symbols, like the Zener cards, the identical white dresses, the yellow baby blanket, and Dr. Trimble's pipe.
Major Themes in The Women in White
Exploitation and scientific abuse
Dr. Trimble and later Sandra treat the women as test subjects rather than people, using isolation, coercion, and sensory-deprivation experiments to prove theories and chase power or immortality. The book repeatedly shows how 'psychic research' becomes a cover for control and harm.
- Betty privately thinks of herself and the other women as Dr. Trimble's 'laboratory animals.'
- Dr. Trimble confines Ivy to a dark room until the other girls vote to let her rejoin them.
- Sandra straps Alex into a Ganzfeld experiment, blindfolded and dosed with LSD.
Female friendship and solidarity
The four women's bonds are a lifeline against isolation and abuse; they comfort one another, cover for each other, and promise to act as family. Yet those bonds are also fractured by Dr. Trimble's manipulation and by betrayal.
- Betty, Kathleen, and Helen vow to be Ivy's family and promise to help with dinners, groceries, and caring for Sandra.
- Helen tearfully makes Betty promise, 'We'll stay as close as sisters forever.'
- After the experiments, Kathleen screams 'Go away' when Helen comes to her door.
Deception, secrets, and hidden lives
Many characters conceal their true selves or pasts—Riley hides her shame and bankruptcy, Betty has lived frozen in the 1960s, Danny hides his gambling, and Sandra hides her crimes. The narrative repeatedly shows that surfaces are unreliable and that secrets can destroy relationships.
- Riley tells Betty a partial truth about selling her home, when in fact the bank repossessed it.
- Betty serves Riley tea but is secretly drinking coffee.
- Riley realizes her engagement ring was likely stolen by Danny, making her wonder if anything about their marriage was real.
- Sandra's natural warmth evaporates, and Riley describes it as watching an assailant remove a mask.
Trauma and the haunting past
Characters are repeatedly visited by past abuses and losses, often through sensory triggers, dreams, or familiar places. Kathleen's childhood abuse resurfaces under Dr. Trimble's control, Betty is haunted by nightmares of Trimble, and Riley is shadowed by Danny's betrayal.
- During the Ganzfeld test, Kathleen sees her abuser Mac and roars in rage while her hands are tied down.
- Decades later, Betty panics at the smell of Dr. Trimble's pipe tobacco on Sam Trimble's porch.
- Betty recognizes the intersection from her dream and screams for Douglas to stop just before the crash.
Grief, loss, and remembrance
Loss shapes the characters: Betty loses her husband, her friends, and her baby; Riley loses her marriage and home; Sandra loses her mother. The final chapters emphasize mourning and keeping the dead alive through story and memory.
- Betty says the house has felt empty since Douglas died.
- Betty's face collapses when she learns her friends died, and she cries, 'My beautiful girlfriends.'
- Riley tells Betty's story to Bill Stevens so that Betty and her friends' names are no longer scrubbed from history.
Intuition vs. rational explanation
Psychic abilities, dreams, and premonitions are set against chance, skepticism, and the need to explain everything logically. Betty and Riley's intuitions prove reliable, yet characters repeatedly try to dismiss them as luck or coincidence.
- Dr. Trimble says Betty's Zener card score is five, 'Exactly what chance would allow.'
- Ivy dreams of a black sedan and intercepts Charlie, making the dream come true.
- Riley insists finding the shed was luck, while Betty sees it as proof of Riley's abilities.
Symbols and Motifs
Zener cards
The cards symbolize the institutional attempt to measure, label, and control the women's mysterious abilities, sorting them into numbers and justifying further experiments.
- Douglas tests Betty with Zener cards and excitedly tells Dr. Trimble she averaged eleven.
- Dr. Trimble tests Betty and announces her score is five, exactly what chance would allow.
- Ivy is lured to a paid experiment that includes a double-blind Zener card test in a coffee shop.
White dresses
The identical white dresses represent the erasure of individuality and the women's reduction to interchangeable test subjects under Dr. Trimble's control.
- Dr. Trimble demands that the women wear matching white dresses sewn by his wife.
- The women change into matching white dresses and Dr. Trimble photographs them standing in a line.
- Helen comments that the uniforms feel strange.
Yellow baby blanket
The blanket represents maternal love, vulnerability, and a misread premonition: Betty dreams it ruined and thinks it signals Ivy's baby, but it actually foreshadows the loss of her own unborn child.
- Betty dreams of trying to snatch a yellow baby blanket from the road before a truck runs over it.
- Douglas hands Betty a wrapped gift containing a yellow baby blanket with a blue ribbon before the crash.
- Betty realizes the ruined blanket wasn't a symbol of losing Ivy's baby—it was for hers.
Dr. Trimble's pipe
The pipe is a sensory emblem of Dr. Trimble's malevolent presence and the trauma he inflicted; its smell drags characters back into terror and helplessness.
- Kathleen showers to remove the smell of Dr. Trimble's pipe smoke after the experiments.
- Betty panics when she smells pipe tobacco on Sam Trimble's porch, saying she breathes that scent in her nightmares.
- Betty cries out at the smell and flees, believing Dr. Trimble had entered the house.