36 pages • 1 hour read
Stone Mattress
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Symbols & Motifs
Sight
Sight, or the lack thereof, is a motif throughout the book. In “Alphinland,” Atwood writes, “The beauty is an illusion, and also a warning: there’s a dark side to beauty, as with poisonous butterflies” (1). Without being able to see the beauty, it would be impossible for people to see the ugly. Without seeing the ugly, people cannot appreciate the good and beautiful.
Mirrors are often a symbol of the sight motif. At first, the narrator of “Lusus Naturae” avoids mirrors. Later, as she grows bolder, she looks in a mirror but knows she does not see what other people see when they look at her:
Inside our house, I tried a mirror. They say dead people can’t see their own reflections, and it was true; I could not see myself. I saw something, but that something was not myself: it looked nothing like the kind and pretty girl I knew myself to be, at heart (122).
Verna, the main character in “Stone Mattress,” looks into the mirror before she goes in for her “kill”; she also quotes Tennyson: “Though much is taken, much remains” (218). She then says that her third husband loved Tennyson, letting the reader know that Verna has been married more than once and giving the reader the opportunity to wonder what happened to Verna’s first two husbands. Looking in a mirror can also symbolize vanity in literature. Verna looks in the mirror because she decided, after what she went through in high school, that she is going to be the only important person in her life. Verna doesn’t think or care about others as she gets her revenge. In this way, her vengeance figuratively blinds her.
In “Torching the Dusties,” Wilma loses her vision to macular degeneration. Her daughter gives her binoculars so Wilma can look out her window of her room at the nursing home. Binoculars help one see better, but Wilma’s pair becomes of little use to her as her vision worsens. The binoculars show that while her daughter is trying to be helpful by providing Wilma with a pair, the gift provides little help. Tobias packs the binoculars for their escape from the nursing home. As Wilma’s figurative eyes, it is important that Tobias remembers to bring them with him.
Winter
Many of the stories in Atwood’s collection take place during a Toronto snowstorm, and Atwood uses the symbols of snow and ice to show her characters’ discomfort. While “Revenant” takes place in Florida, where Gavin and Reynolds live, Gavin watches the weather report on the television and in doing so emphasizes Gavin’s obsession with Constance: “Gavin, watching the television weather, has noted with interest the polar vortex gripping the north, the east, the centre. […] That’s where Constance must be right now: in the eye of the storm” (57). This is important because Constance is always the focus of the storm that was her relationship with Gavin.
Sam, in “The Freeze-Dried Groom,” is also forced to struggle with the weather: “The traffic’s muffled, what there is of it. The snow has arrived in earnest; it’s spattering softly against the window like an army of tiny kamikaze mice throwing themselves at the glass, trying to force a way in” (154). This passage symbolizes Sam’s way of trying to force himself into a woman’s life whether it’s his wife Gwyneth or the woman who owns the storage unit. While others may see Sam as selfish and insensitive, Sam sees himself as “earnest,” just like the snow. Without the storm, Sam would not be cold and frozen like the groom he finds in the storage unit.
In “Dark Lady,” Jorrie takes the storm as a personal affront: “How could the weather be doing this to her?” (104). Jorrie takes most things personally, from her assumption that the poem “Dark Lady” is about her to her fear that Tin would turn into “anyone other than her idea of him” (79). Constance, in “Alphinland,” uses the storm to push herself out into the world before she retreats back into her fantasy land.
Silver
Throughout her collection, Atwood references the color silver. Silver can signify aging, as hair turns grey or silver as a person gets older. When a person’s hair is referred to as “silver” as compared to grey, it is positive, with Atwood often saying that the person with silver hair is successful or handsome. Verna, in “Stone Mattress,” has “silver-blond hair” (224), which she feels good about.
In “Alphinland,” Constance looks at the snow and ice outside during the winter storm and thinks about how beautiful it is, “like fairy silver” (1). This foreshadows Constance’s fantasy world, which becomes more real than reality to Constance as she ages. Later, at Gavin Putnam’s funeral, Constance wears a “silver-threaded cardigan that hangs on her loosely” (64). Similarly, in “Torching the Dusties,” Wilma’s hallucinations wear “silver and gold sequins” (272) and “long fur-bordered velvet cloaks and silver muffs” (276). In “The Freeze-Dried Groom,” Sam meets the owner of the storage unit at a motel called The Silver Knight, and in “The Dead Hand Loves You,” Jack makes it so Alf drives a silver car and the dead hand uses a silver fountain pen to write a note to Violet using William’s handwriting.
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By Margaret Atwood
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