Paradox Of A Bowl By Ann Beattie

803 Words2 Pages

Ann Beattie was an American short story writer and novelist who was born on September 8th, 1947 in Washington D.C. she has received many awards throughout her life including the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Ann Beattie has been claimed the most initiated short-story writer in the United States. In the story "Janus", Andrea the protagonist of the story is a former real estate agent who has passion in making a house desirable to sell to house buyers. She brings her special bowl with her every time she goes to a house she is going to sell. The wonderful thing about the bowl to Andrea was that it is “both noticeable and subtle, basically a paradox of a bowl” (71). In "Janus" by Ann Beattie the use of Simile and Symbolism …show more content…

After Andrea realizes that she has left the bowl behind; she stops and contemplates to herself "it was like leaving a friend at an outing-just walking off"(72). The worries start to fill her brain threw out the night and early mornings. By forgetting the bowl behind, Andrea realizes how valuable and treasuring the bowl means to her. The bowl wasn't just a regular everyday bowl you distinguish in your kitchen; it was a very “perceptive and recognizable bowl, perhaps a paradox of a bowl” (71). Revealing that the bowl is being symbolized to the emptiness in Andrea's life is compared to fetishistic reverence "Andrea's treatment of the bowl as a fetish is indicative of the emotional and spiritual emptiness of her life."(Milne,154). In addition, while Andrea favors this cream colored bowl emotionally, the bowl doesn't seem to have anything inside of it, for her to be spiritually attached to it. Exposing that the emptiness of the bowl is referring to …show more content…

When Andrea leaves the bowl at home, it is assumed that she never places anything inside of it. It is described "in a way, it was perfect: the world cut in half, deep and smoothly empty" (74). Since Andrea's obsessive relationship with the bowl has caused her husband to leave her, the empty and loneliness in her life continues to prosper. She is being held confined of her past. All Andrea can really do now is contemplate "Beattie can fill the bowl, to use a metaphor, with whatever she chooses. She can capture, again and again, the story behind the "one small flash of blue, a vanishing point on the horizon" (Charles E May, 215). These quotes symbolizes that she has dealt with her past and has finally moved on. The understatement "the bowl was just a bowl. She did not believe that one second. What she believed was that it was something she loved"(73). She believed that the bowl was a fortune, that it gave her good luck. She also believed that it was a mystery of something she truly admires. In otherwise, "Andrea may feel such a deep connection to the bowl less because it represents the lost loves then because it reflects her own empty, passive condition"(Milne, 167). The connection Andrea is starting to feel towards the bowl starts to add up to the entire love one she has lost in her life, representing the lonely, submissive condition

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