Green Dresses (Motif)
At many significant events, such as awards shows and film premieres, Evelyn wears emerald green dresses. The color becomes her signature, and thus a motif in the novel. In a straightforward way, the motif shows Evelyn's keen self-awareness: she knows how best to flatter and highlight her beauty. The motif also reveals how Evelyn constructs and maintains an intentional persona for her public image. The green color present in the motif is also symbolic because green is often associated with money; when she wears her green dresses, Evelyn is capitalizing on her beauty, and leveraging her appearance to achieve financial security. Finally, green is often symbolically associated with jealousy. Evelyn's beauty provokes jealousy as well as desire, and her intentional deployment of her appearance to achieve her goals sometimes leads to jealousy and strain in her relationship with Celia.
Evelyn's Chipped Tooth (Symbol)
When Celia wins her first Oscar, Evelyn is watching at home and spontaneously leaps up and kisses the screen. When Evelyn does so, she chips her tooth on the screen. This chipped tooth symbolizes Evelyn's true love for Celia. Because Evelyn is ambitious and competitive, she does not always find it easy to be happy when others succeed, but she knows that she feels genuine love for Celia because she is truly happy when Celia wins. The chipped tooth is also symbolic because it creates a (temporary) physical flaw in Evelyn's beauty; she is very vain and is usually very intentional about her appearance, but when she feels joy for Celia, she puts that vanity aside and acts spontaneously. The chipped tooth symbolizes how, when people truly love one another, they can behave in authentic and vulnerable ways.
The Wine Stain on Celia's Shirt (Symbol)
Before Evelyn learns about Celia's sexual identity, they are merely close friends. During this period of friendship, Celia accidentally spills wine on her shirt one night while visiting with Evelyn. When Celia removes her shirt to change, Evelyn feels her first stirring of desire for another woman. The stain symbolizes the spontaneous and even accidental connection between Evelyn and Celia; they were not intending to fall in love, but their romantic connection arose spontaneously. The stain also symbolizes how Celia's sexual orientation is viewed as tainted or depraved in the eyes of the public; even before her identity is revealed, the stain hints that Celia may not be as pure and ideal as her image implies.
Speaking Spanish (Motif)
At various points in the novel, Evelyn's ability to speak and understand Spanish (due to growing up in a Cuban-American family and speaking Spanish as her first language) creates interesting juxtapositions in her relationship with Spanish-speaking characters. Since many of the characters who speak Spanish around her are individuals who work for her or for other wealthy Hollywood stars, this motif explores class and income divides in the novel, and how they often parallel racial lines. It is unusual for Evelyn, as a woman who is not white, to achieve the wealth and power that she does, and she largely foregoes her Cuban heritage. The moments when Evelyn speaks Spanish, or indicates that she understands it, reveal that she does continue to hold on to some ties from her past and her identity before she became famous.
Change of Names (Motif)
All three of the central female characters (Evelyn, Monique, and Celia) use names that are slightly different from their birth names. Evelyn Herrera becomes Evelyn Hugo, Elizabeth Monique Grant uses her middle name, and Celia Jamison becomes Celia St. James. The motif of changing and altering names shows how people, especially women, construct identities for themselves by either hiding or emphasizing certain parts of their past and where they come from. For Evelyn and Celia, choosing a stage name is an important part of their career progression; Celia chooses a different surname in order to be more memorable, and highlight her idealized, "good girl" image. Evelyn has to find a surname that will cover up most of her Cuban heritage but still nod to the exoticism that will make her alluring; notably, Evelyn pretends to come up with her name spontaneously even though she has crafted it very deliberately. Even though she is not famous, Monique organically starts to use a different name so that she can feel closer to her father, and the legacy of him as a Black man. The motif of women changing and choosing new names reveals how women are often crafting and modifying their identities while also responding to important individuals in their lives. Significantly, while all three women change their names for their own reasons, none of them seem to change their names upon marrying (with the exception of a teenaged Evelyn taking the surname of her first husband, Ernie Diaz). This shows that these women might alter their identity, but they do it on their own terms, rather than out of deference to anyone else.
