Again, the perfume bottle symbolizes Laurie’s understanding of her world, while clocks, and thus the clockwork castle, represent order in the universe. When Laurie finds out that Edward Blake, the man she hates most in the world, is her father, it wrecks her world—symbolized by the shattered perfume bottle—and crumbles any sense she has of the universe having order, meaning, and significance—symbolized by the collapsed castle.