Art as Coping: Finding Meaning Through Creation in I Think We've Been Here Before
Thematic Claim
In I Think We've Been Here Before, art functions not as escape but as a lifeline—a way to impose order, preserve memory, and maintain human connection when the world is ending. Hilda paints murals across her house, Jacob and Nora create paper snowflakes and garlands for Berlin, and characters get tattoos they never wanted. Each act of creation is a response to the same pressure: the knowledge that everything will soon be gone. Yet the novel also questions whether art can truly prepare anyone for loss, or whether it simply delays the reckoning.
Hilda's Murals: Preservation Against Erasure
Hilda’s response to her husband Marlen’s terminal cancer—and later to the apocalyptic letter—is to paint. She starts in the kitchen, covering the walls with a detailed family portrait that must be perfect: Marlen healthy, Nora’s eyes the exact shade of blue, even the cat’s disdainful look captured. She wakes at three in the morning to adjust a brushstroke, as if her family’s preservation depends on getting their likenesses right. Marlen recognizes that “what she was really doing was grieving,” and he follows her downstairs to sit with her.
The painting offers no closure. When the kitchen is finished, Hilda simply moves to the dining room, then to the stairs, covering every surface with flowers—poppies, lilacs, sunflowers. She tells Marlen she is trying to make herself ready for dying, but “I don’t think it’s working.” Her art becomes compulsive, a way to keep moving, to avoid sitting still with the fear. She buys more and more paint, acknowledging that “the whole house is going to be painted, inside and out, by the time it’s destroyed.” The mural project is both a tribute and a stall.
Yet Hilda’s art also creates space for intimacy. While she paints, Marlen reads his novel aloud. The two arts—her visual creation and his written one—overlap, allowing them to share time and words even when they cannot share the same acceptance of death. In that stairwell, paintbrush and book become a joint meditation on mortality.
Jacob and Nora's Snowflakes: Building a Shared Reality
In Berlin, Nora and Jacob (who call each other Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt) invent an elaborate fantasy to cope with the end. They pretend the mayor has hired Jacob to decorate Berlin for Christmas. They make yards of ivy garlands and paper snowflakes, then string them on streetlamps and bike racks. The decorations look “vaguely reminiscent of the Upside Down in Stranger Things,” but to them it feels purposeful.
This art is not permanent—the snowflakes will disintegrate along with everything else—but its value lies in the act itself. When an older woman tells them she is glad someone is getting ready for Christmas, they smile. Jacob’s absurd story about the mayor “taking care of her brain” helps Nora manage her panic. The project gives them a reason to walk through the city, to narrate their shared past even though neither can remember it. Art here becomes a scaffolding for relationship, a way to keep talking when words about the apocalypse feel impossible.
Tattoos: Permanent Marks in an Impermanent World
Petra, Sonja, and Nora decide to get tattoos as the world crumbles. Petra chooses an hourglass to symbolize time’s passage and the possibility of reversal; Sonja opts for an infinity symbol. Nora hesitates—tattoos feel childish, trivial—but goes anyway. The tattoo artist, Yannick, says his art is “better than money” in the final days. The gesture is explicitly therapeutic: “something permanent in a time of particular impermanence.” Unlike Hilda’s murals, which aim to preserve the past, tattoos mark the body itself, making the self a canvas for defiant presence. They are a way to say I was here without needing an audience.
Complexity and Contradiction: Art's Limits
The novel does not romanticize art’s power. Hilda’s perfect mural cannot save Marlen; her stairway flowers do not cure her terror. She admits, “I’ve been doing all of this to try to make myself ready for it, but I don’t think it’s working.” Art provides distraction, comfort, and connection, but it cannot erase the fundamental fear of dying. Similarly, Nora’ snowflake project is a “comforting” lie—they both know the decorations will not matter, yet they continue. The tattoo Nora gets does not resolve her helplessness; it only marks her skin.
The most complex case is Marlen’s novel, written before his diagnosis. When Hilda tries to read it, she sets it down again and again. The book is his art, a prediction of the end, but reading it makes her feel the distance between them—he has accepted death; she has not. Art can widen gaps even as it builds bridges. Marlen’s novel ultimately brings the family together in the basement, where they listen to him read while the world goes dark. But that resolution comes only after Hilda has exhausted her painting and finally allowed herself to rest against him. Art buys time, but it cannot stop the ending.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Hilda choose painting as her primary coping strategy?
Painting lets Hilda act physically while processing grief. It gives her a measurable task, a way to “save” her family in image, and a reason to stay near Marlen. The mural’s imperfection—she cannot stop—mirrors her inability to accept death.
2. How do Jacob and Nora’s snowflake decorations differ from Hilda’s murals in purpose?
Jacob and Nora’s art is performative and fictional. They invent a pretend commission to create shared meaning. While Hilda paints for private preservation, their snowflakes are public, an act of care for a city that cannot be saved.
3. What does the tattoo scene reveal about art’s relationship to mortality?
Tattoos are permanent marks on a temporary body. They symbolize a choice to create meaning now, even if that meaning is personal and ephemeral. The scene suggests that art matters not because it lasts, but because it is made in spite of ending.
4. In what way does Marlen’s novel both help and hinder Hilda’s coping?
The novel helps Hilda feel pride and connection when she hears Marlen read it. But it hinders her because she cannot finish it—it forces her to confront the emotional distance between her fear and his acceptance. Reading it would require her to move at his pace.
5. Does the novel ultimately argue that art is a successful way to face annihilation?
The novel offers no single verdict. Hilda never feels ready, but her painting allows her to be with Marlen in his final days. The snowflakes and tattoos create moments of connection. Art does not defeat death, but it shapes how people spend the time they have. The characters’ creative acts are neither futile nor triumphant—they are simply human.