How the Penguins Saved Veronica

Veronica keeps a memento box containing her locket and diaries. It symbolizes her past heartache and relates to the theme of Coping with Loss. The box serves a physical as well as a metaphorical function. It is a container that holds objects and keeps them separated from other objects. Veronica has structured her life in such a way that she contains her grief inwardly and shuts away the physical evidence of her past in a locked receptacle.

As the novel begins, Veronica has completely forgotten that the box exists. She only remembers after Eileen finds it in a neglected storage room. Of course, opening the box is an analogy to opening Pandora’s box, and Veronica is aware of the parallel. She says, “It would be like Pandora in the myth, letting loose a thousand demons. The box must absolutely go back to the spiders without my interference” (6). Like Pandora, Veronica can’t resist the temptation to open the box, and it precipitates her last-ditch effort to find meaning and connection in the world.

For much of the story, Veronica struggles to keep a lid on her feelings, just as she struggles to keep the box locked and hidden. Even when she resumes wearing the locket, she fails to explain its contents to anyone. Not speaking about pain doesn’t make it go away any more than forgetting the box makes its unread contents disappear. Both strategies prove that Veronica hasn’t yet learned how to cope with loss constructively.