Conrad Aiken’s Silent Snow, Secret Snow is a psychological horror fantasy. It begins with a twelve-year-old boy (Paul) imagining overnight snowfalls. This leads to a growing fascination with snow, the thought of which provides relief from the mundane routine of his daily life, the ugliness of the world around him, parent-child conflicts, and awakening sexuality. As the imagined snowfalls increase, Paul begins to lose touch with reality. In the disturbing climax, his boy’s “snow voices” come alive and he completely withdraws into himself as they tell him a story. Major themes: mental illness, concealment, detachment and alienation.
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I have always loved this story, but never considered it to be about mental illness or horror,
rather about an experience of greater consciousness similar to those described by those who remember an experience of death (AKA near-death experience).
I appreciate your taking the time to comment, Joyce. One of the beauties of literature is that stories can have different meanings for different people, depending on their life experience. Thank you for sharing your interpretation.