The Historian | Themes

The Historian Themes

History's Connection to the Present

History's impact on the present serves as the central theme of The Historian. Most of the characters in the novel are historians seeking a past—sometimes their own—that holds clues to the present.

To make the leap from past to present, the characters must first understand that historical events are more than just stories unrelated to reality. The narrator realizes this when she begins researching the life of Vlad Dracula:

The thing that most haunted me that day, however, as I closed my notebook and put my coat on to go home, was not my ghostly image of Dracula, or the description of impalement, but the fact that these things had—apparently—actually occurred.

Paul reiterates his daughter's historical awareness later on: "This corner of history was as real as the tiled floor under our feet…. The people to whom it had happened had actually lived and breathed."