Greater Boston
The Greater Boston area plays a significant role as setting in the story. This significance is highlighted just four paragraphs in through imagery that attempts to undo what the narrator considers to be a popular misconception:
“The Greater Boston area may appear reserved and unwelcoming to some, but it readily reveals it intimate treasures to those willing to stroll through its meandering streets. There are small blue plaques on gates, diminutive, ancient townhouses with brightly painted doors; tilting cemeteries, hushed museums; gardens so small they only fit the statue they protect.”
“She could fly”
A letter written from Rosemary Kennedy to her father commenting upon a photo of Amelia Earhart plays a hugely significant role in the narrative. Especially important is a carefully printed sentence written by a different hand: “She could fly.” Earhart, of course, remains the most famous female pilot in American history, but the reference is not entirely clear. The phrase takes on an increasingly metaphorical import that shifts its meaning from Rosemary and Earhart to the narrator and her mother.
Shakespeare
A production of Hamlet plays a center role in the narrative. A possible production of Macbeth is referenced. An original folio edition of Coriolanus is on display in the Special Collections exhibit. The student cast as Helen in Troilus and Cressida announces she plans to prepare for the role by taking a pole-dancing class. A grade of a B-double minus on Measure for Measure briefly upsets the narrator who will go from there to joins a secret college club called the Shakespeare Society. The novel is steeped in the imagery of Shakespearean drama not for any one particular reason, but as a means of proving a layer of context or subtext to a variety of issues at play.
Absence as Imagery
Unusually, one of the most effective uses of imagery in the novel is the absence of any concrete imagery. The recent death of the narrator’s mother is announced in the first paragraph. Gradually, the reader will quite a few more details of her neurological and psychological conditions, but these are really just insight into her approaching death. She is an enigma to her daughter and so, of course, to the reader and this ambiguity is an essential character component:
“In general, she was someone whose life remained curiously undiscussed. Her past, as the daughter of second-generation Irish Catholic immigrants, was effectively erased the moment she converted to Judaism and married my father. It was like living with someone who had no script, whose life story was prematurely sealed.”
