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Paul’s Mother
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Paul’s Mother
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Misery Symbols |
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Typewriter
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The Royal typewriter symbolizes Paul’s compulsive need to create. When Annie first buys the typewriter, Paul imagines the machine is maliciously grinning at him, and he determines that it “look[s] like trouble.” This feeling…
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Africa represents the “real” world outside the prison of Annie’s house—and Paul’s increasing distance from that reality. Recalling a childhood visit to the Boston Zoo with his mother, Paul imagines himself as…
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Natural phenomena such as tides and weather symbolize entrapment by forces outside of one’s control. Paul initially associates the pain in his shattered legs with a childhood memory of jagged pilings which are routinely covered…
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