59 pages • 1 hour read
Daniel SilvaA Death in Cornwall
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Stolen Picasso Painting
Content Warning: This section mentions murder and the Holocaust.
At the center of A Death in Cornwall is the painting that Charlotte was killed for researching: an “[u]ntitled portrait of a woman in the surrealist style, oil on canvas” by Picasso (45). She investigated the provenance of this work and discovered that it had once belonged to Bernard Levy and that it was sold by his lawyer after he died in Auschwitz. His grandson Emanuel Cohen was hoping to reclaim this painting for their family, but he was murdered by the same assassin who killed Charlotte. Because of the painting’s history, it symbolizes how the Holocaust impacted collections of art. This stolen painting is a reference to the “Paris Roundup of 1942” (170), when art was stolen from many Jewish people.
The painting also functions as a way of revealing Harris Weber’s strategy of using art to launder money. Robinson hired the assassin who killed Charlotte and Cohen to protect the owner of the painting, a shell company called OOC, which is maintained by the law firm Harris Weber. Robinson also sends the assassin to kill Ricard when he goes against the wishes of OOC to sell the stolen Picasso to Anna. Gabriel’s investigation of the painting leads to his discovery of the tax evasion created by Harris Weber. The motif of the stolen painting develops the theme of The Commodification of Art.
Goat
In Corsica, Gabriel feuds with a “horned domestic goat, perhaps two hundred and fifty pounds in weight” (205), which belongs to Don Casabianca. The goat hates Gabriel and rams his rental car. Everyone on the island knows about this feud. The goat represents Gabriel’s relationship to the community. It resists him with apparent hostility, but this hostility becomes something closer to a shared joke as the two develop an unconventional bond. In part through the story of this goat, Gabriel is accepted as part of the local lore. Unlike Gabriel, Ingrid gets along with the goat; the goat seems to enjoy it when she speaks Danish. When Gabriel jokes about his injuries from Robinson, he says that he’s not sure if he wants to blame Christopher or the goat. Gabriel tells Christopher that it’s “a toss-up between [him] and the goat” (371). The literal goat represents shared jokes.
The other side of this symbol is less literal. Figuratively, Russia becomes the scapegoat for the deaths of Robinson and his men in Federov’s manor (who were actually killed by Christopher and Timothy). Christopher’s boss at SIS, Graham, is initially responsible for coordinating the coverup. Prime Minister Lancaster later assists in publicly making the Russians scapegoats. He tells the press that “the available evidence suggest[s] Russian involvement” (384). Unlike the Corsican goat, which physically attacks Gabriel’s vehicle, the Russians aren’t to blame for Robinson’s death; they are merely a scapegoat.
Boats
Boats in A Death in Cornwall symbolize freedom from society and its laws. One such boat is Monjean’s “twelve-meter motor yacht called Mistral” (201). The heist crew uses this as their base of operations in Monaco and as their getaway vehicle. The Mistral is key to stealing files from the offices of Harris Weber. Another boat that Silva briefly mentions is Robinson’s yacht, Discretion. This is ironic because Robinson’s crimes are unveiled at the end of the novel. He is not discrete enough to evade Gabriel.
The third boat is Gabriel’s ketch. At the beginning of the novel, Gabriel boards this boat to talk to Timothy, who is watching the boat for Gabriel. At the end of the novel, Gabriel borrows his own boat without asking, and “[f]air play require[s] him to return the ketch from whence he had purloined it” (399). However, Gabriel encounters some rough seas when returning to Cornwall. He says he “ha[s] a couple of close shaves, but [he] [i]s able to pull her back from the brink” (400). The struggle that Gabriel has on the sea mirrors the trouble he has during the case. He has a “close shave” as Robinson kidnaps him and tries to kill him, but he escapes with his life. This final moment on a boat symbolizes Gabriel’s ability to survive and overcome adversity.
