Where Sleeping Girls Lie

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination, racism, suicide, rape, and sexual violence.

Alfred Nobel Academy itself is an important symbol of how appearances are often deceiving. It is also a reflection of the importance of closely examining and questioning the past instead of blindly following tradition. ANA is a “giant castle-like boarding school” with “brownstone walls, fancy peaks, and crisp greenery” (3). The grounds and school buildings are a stunning mix of “old and new” structures, indicating how some things are changing, but the school continues to honor and cling to old ways. History is ever-present at ANA. The school’s old buildings and other relics of the past, such as the hidden underground bunkers from World War II, represent the continued presence of history and tradition, as well as the school’s reluctance to acknowledge that history and understand how it continues to affect and influence the present.

From the moment Sade arrives, she is suspicious of ANA’s perfect veneer. She feels as if the school is “too good to be true” (14) and knows all too well “that wealth [comes] with an abundance of secrets” (7). The sense that the old buildings are haunted indicates how the ghosts of ANA’s history of misogyny and white male privilege continue to terrorize the school.