The Garden of Eden

“You don’t really mind being brothers do you?”

Catherine probes David and his traditional conception of gender roles. She uses her new haircut and her references to gender to test his boundaries and exert control over him. Though David dismisses her behavior as a mere phase, their new role as “brothers” makes him uncomfortable but unwilling to admit as much. Catherine enjoys challenging David’s preconceptions because doing so allows her to feel powerful and in control of the relationship.

“I want every part of me dark and it’s getting that way and you’ll be darker than an Indian and that takes us further away from other people.”

Catherine’s desire to push boundaries is an external exercise. She is unhappy with herself but lacks the tools to address her internal issues. As such, she focuses on changing her external appearance such as cutting her hair or dying her skin. By tanning her skin and changing her hair, Catherine wishes to make herself unique or special in a way that she does not believe she can do with a purely internal, self-reflective approach.

“You got up to go out and take the damned car and stay out and the hell with her and then you come back in and have to ask for the key and then sit down like a slob.”

David believes himself to be in control of his life and his marriage, but he is increasingly aware of the numerous ways in which he is beholden to Catherine. When she angers him, he is forced to go back to her and depend on her to furnish him with the room key. In a literal sense, he depends on her for access to his living quarters. The key is a reminder that she is the wealthy partner in the relationship and–despite David’s successful stories–he is financially beholden to her. The key is a symbol of the extent to which David relies on Catherine, and his anger at having to ask for it is anger toward his lack of independence.

“But I can’t stand to be dead.”

Catherine’s constant reinventions are partially due to a fear of mortality. She feels threatened by a lack of forward momentum and seeks out constant change in her life so that she can feel in control of her destiny. Her haircuts, her tan, and her marriage are ways in which she can feel alive by changing herself and reveling in her novel new appearance. Staying still for too long forces Catherine to think about her unhappiness; she would rather press ruthlessly on than examine herself for too long.

“They lay side by side on the bed in the big room in The Palace in Madrid where Catherine had walked in the Museo del Prado in the light of day as a boy and now she would show the dark things in the light and there would, it seemed to him, be no end to the change.”

Catherine is aware of dichotomies, and she challenges such ideas at every opportunity. She understands society’s gender dichotomy and challenges it by moving freely between identities as a boy or a girl. Similarly, she travels from France to Spain and back again. She moves into the light from the dark and steps between the shadows, always blurring the lines between binary ideas to maintain a constantly shifting identity. Catherine’s constant change and her desire to challenge preconceived ideas stem from her constant fear of having to examine herself. 

“You want a girl don’t you? Don’t you want everything that goes with it?

Scenes, hysteria, false accusations, temperament isn’t that it?”

When Catherine is told to return to her role as a girl, she plays into the social expectations that she associated with the female gender. To Catherine, to be a girl is to perform scenes of anger, hysteria, and false accusations. These are the ideas she immediately associates with the gender identity “girl,” so she facetiously threatens to perform such an identity when David challenges her. Catherine’s performance as a girl contains the ideas that she has learned to associate with a specific gender, a socially constructed version of a girl as a role that she can perform whenever she pleases.

“They had three rooms at the end of the long low rose-colored Provencal house where they had stayed before.”

The three rooms at the hotel provide a clear delineation of physical space. David compartmentalizes his life: he has one room for Catherine, one for his writing, and one which will eventually be used by Marita. In his mind, these three rooms refer to three separate parts of his life. But as much as David would like to distinguish and compartmentalize, he cannot. He will be forced to reckon with the blurred lines between the different parts of his life as everything descends into chaos. Eventually, the three rooms are portrayed as part of the same hotel in the same way that Catherine, Marita, and David’s writing are indistinguishable elements of his chaotic present.

“Anywhere. The god damn cafe.”

Catherine’s constant challenges to David’s desire to maintain the status quo have an impact. David remains silent, hoping that Catherine’s behavior is merely a phase. However, he cannot help his emotions bursting through his stoic external demeanor. David agrees to go to the “god damn café” to recuse himself from an argument and try to return to a sense of normality that he craves.

“You can’t fool a bar mirror.”

Catherine is obsessed with her reflection because she wants to understand what the world sees when looking at her. However, she fears that she cannot trick a bar mirror because the blurring effects of the alcohol served in bars reveal the truth that she is trying to hide. Catherine spends her life trying to fool mirrors and alter how the world perceives her, but she is undermined by the alcohol and its ability to remove her inhibitions and clarify her identity for the rest of the world. 

“Finishing is what you have to do, he thought. If you don’t finish, nothing is worth a damn.”

David is driven and absolutist in his approach to writing. He has a very clear, distinct goal and wants to be certain that he finishes his story. His approach to writing contrasts with Catherine’s approach to identity and life, which is constantly in a state of change and is never resolved. The difference in their outlook suggests they are incompatible. David is driven to finish everything and to find an end whereas Catherine will push on forever and never settle on a single outcome.

“Isn’t it lucky Heiress and I are rich so you’ll never have anything to worry about? We’ll take good care of him won’t we Heiress?”

Money buys Catherine the privilege of never having to address her psychological issues. She offers David financial backing to amuse herself, acting as his patron so that she can continue her relentless drive forward into new, challenging identities. She reminds David of her financial status as a subtle way to remind him of the power she has over him. Contained within her promise to take care of David is the suggestion that this care can be withdrawn at any time. She can toy with David to distract herself from her issues.

“There’s a door to yours that bolts on each side.”

The door which locks from both sides is a subtle way for David to establish boundaries in his relationship with Marita. Unlike Catherine, who explicitly states what she wants, David does not feel assured enough to immediately proposition Marita. Instead, he unlocks one side of the door and waits for her to unlock the other. The double-bolted door is a symbol of consent in the relationship, assuring David that the affair is mutual.

“We’ll swim down until we just can make it up.”

Catherine and David agree to dive as deep as they can, pushing themselves to a point near death out of curiosity. The dive is a metaphor for their marriage, in which they prod and probe each other as a kind of intellectual exercise. When diving, however, they can reach the point of no return and turn back just in time. In their marriage, they are increasingly unable to recognize the boundaries.

“Everything I worried about is so simple now.”

Catherine claims that everything in her life is simple now. Like most of Catherine’s comments, however, the subtext implies that the world is not exactly as she claims it to be. Catherine has not dealt with her worries or her concerns. Instead, she is more concerned than ever and in more danger of doing something irreparable. At the same time, the situation between Catherine, David, and Marita has never been more complex. The obvious complexity of the situation belies Catherine’s real meaning: she has not stopped worrying, and she is lying, trying to convince herself as much as the others that everything is fine.

“But I did put up a substantial sum and you must admit you’ve lived more comfortably than you did before you married me.”

By mentioning the support she has provided to David, Catherine can remind her husband about their imbalanced financial strength. There is an imbalance of power that cannot be easily resolved, no matter how much success David achieves in his career. Unlike David, Catherine has the power to challenge the boundaries of their relationship. David will not become as rich as Catherine, but Catherine can become a boy or have her hair cut in the same manner as her husband. Due to her wealth, she sets boundaries in a way that David cannot.

“We are pioneers in opening up the summer season which is still regarded as madness.”

Catherine and David lead such privileged lives that they frame themselves as pioneers and defiant challengers of the status quo for doing something as benign as visiting a place in the traditional off-season. Catherine is desperate to view herself as an important and vibrant person, so she attaches significance to even the smallest gesture. Taking a vacation during the wrong month is turned into a challenge to the traditions of her society, allowing Catherine to view herself as uniquely clever or insightful.

“But I want us to be the same and you almost are and it wouldn’t be any trouble to do.”

Catherine wants David to go back to Jean to have their hair cut in the same style again. This time, however, she is less concerned with making them look more alike and more concerned with distinguishing them from Marita. Catherine fears and resents Marita’s influence over her husband. By making David have his hair cut in the same fashion again, Catherine can be sure of her influence over him, and she can use the external aesthetics of the haircut to remind everyone that she and David are closer than David and Marita, even as David drifts away from her in an internal, emotional sense. 

“The distances did not matter since all distances changed and how you remembered them was how they were.”

To the characters in the novel, emotional reality is more important than facts or figures. When writing his story, David knows that the exact details do not matter. Rather, he is more concerned with conveying the emotional reality of his memories to his audience. Likewise, Catherine does not care about reality. She cares about her emotional truth; she may not be a boy, but she knows the importance of feeling like any gender at any given moment, as this is her emotional reality.

“You want everything so much and when you get it it’s over and you don’t give a damn.”

Catherine has no real idea what she wants from her life. Without real ambitions or goals, she searches for something with which to define her existence. Instead of defining her life through a goal or ambition, she defines it through a negative idea. She may not know what she wants, but she knows what she is denied. As such, Catherine only wants what she cannot have and turns an absence of something into something which she must have or attain.

“There was no more true elephant, only the gray wrinkled swelling dead body and the huge great mottled brown and yellow tusks that they had killed him for.”

As David writes the story, the elephant becomes a metaphor for his marriage. The giant animal which initially filled him with awe and happiness now fills him with bitterness and regret. After tracking it through the wilderness, he now pities the elephant and regrets his influence over its life. His influence has turned the majestic elephant into a “gray wrinkled swelling dead body.” There is no true elephant in the same way that David no longer has a real marriage to Catherine.

“‘Yes’, David said and poured a glass of the lovely cold wine on the bright clear day in the pleasant, sunny room in the clean, comfortable hotel and, sipping it, felt it fail to lift up his dead cold heart.”

The couple’s experiences in the south of France are very luxurious. Thanks to Catherine’s money, they have laid in the sun and drunk expensive alcohol for months. For all the beauty of their surroundings and the exquisiteness of the produce they consume, their lives and emotions have soured. For all the luxury and wealth, the marriage cannot be preserved and the wine no longer gives him pleasure. No amount of fine wine or sunny beaches can heal the hollowness in his heart.

“Her bed had been made up now for two people.”

The bed in Marita’s room functions as a symbol of the tacit approval of the hotel owner’s wife. The older woman makes the bed for two people to signify to David that she approves of his relationship with Marita without crossing any kind of boundary by stating this explicitly. Manners and class differences (as well as a language barrier) mean that the hotel owner’s wife can never tell David how she feels, so she must communicate through gestures. Still, David understands her meaning, and he agrees with her judgment.

“I’ll write it in the sand.”

David offers to write a declaration of love in the sand. He means the comment as a grand gesture but, given the circumstances in which he met Marita, the vagueness and impermanent nature of his gesture are telling. The declaration written in the sand will not last. The tide will pull into the bay and erase David’s words, leaving behind a blank beach. In the same way that David loved Catherine once and now loves Marita, his declaration of love to Marita is impermanent. He means to show Marita how much he loves her but only serves to illustrate the ephemeral, shifting nature of his love.