The Apartment
After his mother's death, the apartment that he once found to be welcoming seems to shrink and become overwhelmingly cold. Even though the apartment hasn't changed at all, as all of the furniture and items within it have stayed the same, the atmosphere of the apartment and Theo's description of it has changed immensely. The death of Theo's mother makes the apartment seem "spindly" (85). Without his mother's presence, everything in his house loses its warmth.
The Goldfinch
Even though the painting is very small, it is extremely enticing, and shows a small bird with a chain around its ankle, a symbol of beauty and confinement, of untapped potential and the things holding us back from flight. Theo is overwhelmed by the beauty of the painting, and wants to spend hours staring at it, but he also knows that his theft of the painting makes it impossible for him to look at it for too long, even though he must keep it with him at all times at the risk of being caught with it and facing extreme consequences for his childhood theft. He cannot distance himself from the painting and the memory of his mother's death and the way he retrieved the painting, and he himself is chained to the painting and to his trauma, constrained by external forces he cannot control.
Hobart and Blackwell
When Theo first enters Hobie's shop, he describes it as a "wilderness of gilt," (151) a golden symbol of hope that is also a meeting place between extreme beauty and the reality of decay, the rotting dead flowers and heaviness of the air caused by Welty's death. The shop represents the confluence of good and bad, and the beauty of objects that are inherited and preserved over time, carrying the memories of those that previously owned them.
Amsterdam
When Theo arrives in Amsterdam, he is filled with dread while being surrounded by "activity and cheer" (5). He describes sharp contrasts, with warm scarves meeting icy winds, clattering cobblestones, and other menacing juxtapositions that show the divergence between the Christmas joy surrounding and the pain that Theo feels after he murders Martin and loses the painting again.
