Mad Shadows is a book about obsession and delusion. It's characters exhibit fixations on beauty, wealth and revenge. This coincides with the fact that all the main characters are defected in some way or another. The main character, Isabelle-Marie is hideous. Her ugliness is even more exaggerated in comparison to Patrice, her Adonis-like brother. Patrice is a soulless idiot who's only thoughts are of his own good looks, perhaps cultivated by his mothers admiration of …showed first 75 words of 563 total…

…showed last 75 words of 563 total…Michael loved Isabelle-Marie only because of the perception that she was beautiful. The characters only realize how void their life is when they lose the one thing they hang on to, so much so that they'd rather die than continue living .Even Isabelle-Marie kills herself once she's gotten her revenge because her bitterness was all she had to cling to. Mad Shadows is symbolic of man's desire to find completeness in something that lacks substance.