Janus, a Roman God, is the god of transitions and has two faces allowing him to look into both the future and the past. In Ann Beatties short story "Janus", she uses a bowl allowing her to symbolically depict Andreas two-faced life and her transition to loss of composure. Firstly, the bowl is used to represent her extramarital affair with her lover.
Similarly, it is used to show her and her husbands defective relationship. Finally, the bowl represents Andreas deteriorating self-control. By using the bowl symbolically, Beattie is able to show Andreas downward spiral to a chaotic life. Andrea, the protagonist, is very much like the Roman God Janus as she lives a two-faced life. Her extramarital affair is essentially what leads to her loss of self-control. The bowl is symbolic of her and her lovers affair because,
"[he] bought it for [her]" (320, Beattie). The bowl symbolizes her affair because Andrea is extremely attached to the bowl, just as she is to her lover. Being so attached to the bowl, her lover, stimulates Andreas lack of self-control.
Similarly, the bowl is symbolic of how fragile her affair is. Andrea is very uneasy of the fact that she may lose her lover and the reader learns this when she says, "the idea of damage persisted" (319, Beattie). This shows how two-faced
Andrea is because she is married yet cares more about a bowl, which symbolizes her lover, than she does her husband.This in turn leads to her loss of self-control. Furthermore, the bowl is always put in a place where it is shown off to everyone else. However, her affair is very enigmatic. When Ann Beattie states, "instead of just moving a pitcher or dish, she
[removes] all the other objects from [the] table," the reader is shown how two-faced A...
... middle of paper ...
...o loss of self control because she could not control her feelings and is her life has become very inconclusive.
The story ends with a "vanishing point on the horizon"(320, Beattie) which leads the reader to believe that her life will
go on. Therefor showing that Andrea is going to try and fix her life but from what the reader has learned, her life is too
chaotic to fix.
Throughout the story, Beattie uses a bowl symbolically to characterize Andrea and show the reader how her life is two-faced and that she is losing her composure. The bowl symbolizes three main components which represented Andreas life; her affair, her marriage and her loss of self-control. The bowl allowed Beattie to show the reader that something so important in someone's life can essentially lead to their downfall or even make them a hypocritical person.
Works Cited
"Janus" by Ann Beattie
It has been specified in the play that the setting must have a “small vase with too many flowers in it or a large vase with too few” on top of the small dining table where Vernon and Lucy eats. Considering that the scene presumably happened at Vernon’s place, it was assumed that he was the one who prepared the vase for their lunch. Accordingly, the “small vase with too many flowers in it, or a large vase with too few” represents Vernon in the play. (Hollinger 1385; act 1) A vase that is pleasing to the eye is arranged perfectly having a number of flowers matching the size of the vase. But in the play, the vase intendedly does not correspond to the amount of flowers in it. As a man, he would not care too much about the small details of the presentation, for what matters for him was his hope to be reconciled with his ex-partner and have a sexual intercourse between them. The vase symbolizes Vernon as the one being in control of the relationship. Considering that man was not expected to usually do house chores, the way Vernon did the flower arrangement implies masculinity. Aside from that, it also indicates that it is up to Vernon whether he would take too much effort on a work that is usually done by a woman. The imperfect flower arrangement in the vase represents Vernon’s character denoting manhood, being the manipulative and superior particularly in a
In this way the novel ends on the course of despair that it began in
Throughout the life of Emily Grierson, she remains locked up, never experiencing love from anyone but her father. She lives a life of loneliness, left only to dream of the love missing from her life. The rose from the title symbolizes this absent love. It symbolizes the roses and flowers that Emily never received, the lovers that overlooked her.
... love for her husband and once she got rid of him she never ended up moving on from her past, she wanted to keep making additional changes to her life, like she was never satisfied.
...shachari, Neila C. . "Ann Beatie - Interview." PICTURING ANN BEATTIE: A DIALOGUE. Version Volume 7.1. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 May 2012. .
living in such a manner. I did not know the exact cause of her anxiety
...aining jar to Mrs. Wright, in prison, to present her with a symbolic gesture of their support. Cherries are very sweet and used mainly as a garnish, a topping, something one doesn’t need but enjoys. The fact that they want to go beyond her request for clothing and bring her something more gratifying illustrates their desire to offer her some relief. As with their efforts to hide her uneven stitches, sure to be seen by the men as proof of guilt, they commiserate with her through objects that symbolize their commonality.
Zeena's first weapon against Ethan is neglect. Ethan needs human interaction to function properly. But Zeena, being the villain she is, deliberately deprives Ethan of it. Wharton symbolizes Zeena's neglect with the pickle dish that was never used. When the cat shatters this pickle dish, Mattie cries, "[Zeena] never meant it should be seem not even when there was company; and [Mattie] had to get up on the stepladder to reach it down from the top shelf..." (63). Zeena has placed the red pickle dish, which represents love, passion, and marriage, where it is not easily accessible. Symbolically, Zeena stores away her love and marriage in the drawer, effectively freezing her marriage. Also, the cat, which represents Zeena, breaks the pickle dish. This implies that Zeena destroys all possible love and affection when they surface from oppression. Mattie also states that the pickle dish is never meant to be used, which means that Zeena's intention is to to neglect Ethan's thirst for love as long as she desires. Zeena also decides to neglect Ethan's desire for friends. Zeena knows that Ethan is able to carry himself because he has Mattie by his side. Zeena, being the villain she is, decides to neglect Ethan's desire for friend and expel Mattie. During her heated discussion with E...
She then moves on to be a gracious host to all of these men, again showing success in her womanly duties. Later that night one of the visitors, Sextus Tarquinis, comes into her room, and forces himself upon her, telling her that if she does not comply he will make it look like she had an affair with one of the servants (Livy, 101). She yields to him because she does not want it to seem as if she had an affair and is not able to explain what occurred.... ... middle of paper ...
Afterwards, she understood why he hated her after she prevented him from playing the stock market when their stock would increase on stanza 3, additionally demonstrating the equity between them. Moreover, proof of their equity is further shown through their dedication. “I put on eyeliner and a concerto and make pungent observations about the great / issues of the day / Even when there’s no one here but him,” shows the wife’s efforts for the husband. The husband’s dedication is revealed on stanza 2 when she asks “If his mother and I was drowning and / he had to choose one of us to save, / He says he’d save me.” A relationship deprived of equity would be illustrated in “The Chaser”. The love potion described by John Collier will cause the drinker to “want to know all you do” (Page 200) and “want to be everything to you” (Page 200). “Then the customers come back, later in life, when they are better off, and want more expensive things” (Page 201) imply many of his customer’s return for the poison. This suggests that many of the relationships will be unable to develop beyond a certain point after buying the “love
The narrator makes comments and observations that demonstrate her will to overcome the oppression of the male dominant society. The conflict between her views and those of the society can be seen in the way she interacts physically, mentally, and emotionally with the three most prominent aspects of her life: her husband, John, the yellow wallpaper in her room, and her illness, "temporary nervous depression. " In the end, her illness becomes a method of coping with the injustices forced upon her as a woman. As the reader delves into the narrative, a progression can be seen from the normality the narrator displays early in the passage, to the insanity she demonstrates near the conclusion.
In a subtle way, Brush also makes the wife’s actions selfish. Even though her husband was wrong to react in the way that he did, she was also selfish in her actions. Clearly, her husband has a shy personality because “he was hotly embarrassed” (13) in front of “such few people as there were in the restaurant” (11). Using a couple of this age (“late thirties” (1)), Brush asserts that the wife should have known her husband’s preferences and been sensitive to them. The author also uses the seemingly opposite descriptions the couple: “There was nothing conspicuous about them” (5) and the “big hat” (4) of the woman. The big hat reveals the wife’s desire to be noticed.
...eisz. She can hear her playing the piano and thinks of her talking about art. She wonders if she is a real artist. She becomes exhausted and knows that she is too far out to return. The water that she was so mesmerized with throughout the novel and that was the beginning of her new life, was also the end.
...her to feel despair. Her misery resulted in her doing unthinkable things such us the unexplainable bond with the woman in the wallpaper.
with throughout her life, leads her to a shattered future filled with confusion and a lack of stability. In the novel, one