Precarious duplex
Eva has finally managed to get rid of that house Franklyn bought for them. One might think that it was sad to say good bye to a lovely place with a backyard, but Eva would disagree. Although everything in her new place is “precarious”, she likes it there. The steep “stairway to the second floor has no banister” and it helps “spicing my ascent to bed with vertigo after three glasses of wine”. The floors “creak” and the window frames “leak”, “and there is an air about the place of fragility and under confidence, as if at any moment the entire structure might simply blink out like a bad idea”. The depicted havoc is supposed to represent Eva’s emotional state.
A magnificent effect
Eva’s neighbors did everything possible in order to remind her that she was Kevin’s mother, the woman who gave birth to a mass murderer. That time someone poured red paint on the front of the house. The effect “was quite magnificent, if you had a taste for the sensation”. Unfortunately, Eve didn’t have it, so she could not enjoy that artistic effect. The house looked “as if its throat were slit”. It “was splashed in wild, gushing Rorschachs”. The color was chosen “so meticulously – deep, rich, and luscious, with a hint of purplish blue – that it might have been specially mixed”. This imagery is supposed to create an uneasy feeling, for the color of the paint reminds of a color of human’s blood.
The stereotype
Eva had a lot of fears connected with motherhood. For instance, she “was afraid of being that archetypal figure in the doorway – frowzy, a little plump – who waves good-bye and blows kisses”. She was afraid to be the woman “who dabs her eyes with an apron ruffle in the fumes of departing exhaust”. Eva didn’t want to be a person “who turns forlornly to twist the latch and wash the two-few dishes by the sink as the silence in the room presses down like a dropped ceiling”. This imagery creates a rather desperate feeling, for it depicts a rather common fear of the majority of people.
