Penpal

The house that the narrator and his mother live in (and, by extension, its location near the woods) is one of the novel’s most prominent motifs, thematically linking to Loss of Innocence and Trust in an Idyllic Small Town. In Chapter 2, the narrator describes his family’s move into the town, describing how the house was transported in parts by highway and assembled on foundations in one of the neighborhood’s expansions (so presumably it’s a modular home). At this point, the house represents the hope of the new life that the narrator and his mother can enjoy once they settle in an area that meets their financial needs. He even looks at his house with a rosy perspective, comparing it to a palace even though he’s aware that he and his mother aren’t wealthy.

Although the house provides a refuge from the woods, which scare the narrator after nightfall, the sinister power of the pen pal infringes on the security that the house offers, turning it into a dangerous place. After the pen pal attempts to abduct the narrator and take him into the woods, his mother initiates a move to another part of town. When she discovers signs that someone has been living in the crawlspace under their house, she expedites the move, knowing that the abductor could strike again at any moment. The symbolic corruption of the house doesn’t occur to the narrator until Chapter 4 when he and Josh return to it to search for Boxes. The sight of the dark house leads the narrator to think that his mother lied to him, which is the first sign of stress in their relationship. Later, Josh reports that the narrator’s old bedroom is covered in photographs of the narrator, signaling the pen pal’s continued obsession with him. The pen pal unpacks the narrator’s clothes and hangs them in the narrator’s room, hinting at his intention to make the house a home for himself and the narrator.

Dathan Auerbach uses the motif of the house to reflect the urban decay of the town as it develops. Echoing the image of the pen pal in the crawlspace, the narrator later shares an urban legend about an abandoned mall in town. In the legend, a monster lives under the mall, scaring tenants and shoppers away until the mall is wholly its domain.