A Symbol of Love

A detailed Summary of A Symbol of Love

In “Janus”, Andrea’s lover buys her a bowl at a crafts fair. “It was his idea that when he could not be there to hold her hand she could hold her own.”(16) Throughout this story Andrea becomes attached to the bowl because it reminds her of her lover. The author takes the audience through the many stages of Andrea’s love affair. In “Janus” Ann Beattie uses a bowl as a symbol of love.

In the beginning of the story, Andrea views the bowl as perfect. She is excited about her new love. “Perhaps it was not what you’d select if you faced a shelf of bowls, and not the sort of thing that would inevitably attract a lot of attention at a crafts fair. Yet it had real presence.”(1) Andrea’s perfect love is not something people agree with and they simply choose not to see it. She wants to make the bowl blend in with the objects around it. The bowl “was not at all ostentatious, or even so noticeable that anyone would suspect that it had been put in place deliberately.” (4) Andrea is careful where she is seen with her lover. No one would ever suspect him.

The bowl is placed on the coffee table in her home. “She didn&

soon left her because she “could not have it both ways.”

Andrea has a “foolish thought that if only the bowl were an animate object she could thank it.”(10) She knows she is falling in love with the bowl (and her lover) and she owes her happiness and success to it, and to him. Andrea wants to confess to her husband. She is “often tempted to come right out and say that she thought the bowl in the living room, the cream-colored bowl, was responsible for her success.” (10) She cannot tell him about her feelings for the bowl. To tell him this would mean she has to tell him about her lover. Andrea cannot even look at her husband: “Sometimes in the morning she would look at him and feel guilty that she had such a constant secret.” (10) Her love for the bowl becomes something she cannot deny. “There was something within her now, something real that she never talked about.” (11)

“As with a lover, there was no exact scenario of how matters would come to a close.”(14) Andrea becomes anxious over the bowl’s “possibility of disappearance.” She begins to wake at night to look at the bowl. She washes it and handles it without worry. “Yet the idea of damage persisted.”(15) She fears “some accident would happen”. The place that love once lighted is fading to darkness. Just as the plants that wer

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Approximate Word count = 953
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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A Symbol of Love

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