Jaguar Symbol Analysis

Bride’s car, a Jaguar, symbolizes how she uses wealth and material success to shield herself from the pain of past trauma and other difficult emotions. Bride’s Jaguar is an expensive luxury car, which she can afford because of her successful and lucrative career. But the book’s initial mention of the car describes it as “sleek, rat gray with a vanity license,” noting that it “[looks] like a gun.” By comparing the Jaguar to a rat, the novel suggests that there is something unsavory to Bride about the car—and, therefore, about the wealth that allowed Bride to purchase it. Rats for instance, may carry diseases or cause an infestation. The novel thus implies that the Jaguar poses a similar risk for Bride—that the unhealthy coping mechanisms she has developed to avoid her past traumas could completely overtake her, inhibiting her from processing her past productively and living a healthy, well-adjusted life. What’s more, her focus on wealth and status could cause her to lose her capacity for love or authenticity. The book’s comparison of then Jaguar to a gun reinforces the sense of threat that the car poses.

On her way to find Booker, Bride crashes her Jaguar. The crash is a metaphor for how Bride must take apart, or “wreck,” her methods of self-protection to become vulnerable and find love. Notably, the car is put back together—Bride does not remain wrecked—but it is repaired with a door from a different car model entirely. That new door on the Jaguar shows how the Jaguar, just like Bride herself, emerges from a time of intense transformation significantly changed but still intact.