Window Panes Do a Prison Make
An enormous window constructed of multiple individual square panes with thick dividers is used quite effectively as imagery on a multiple levels. The actual size of the window frame is truly panoramic, offering a glimpse into a beautiful world of nature beyond. Cary, however, is almost always situate in front of this space so that it is not the view which is noticeable, the arrangement of the geometrically symmetrical panes which serve to create a subliminal connection to prison bars. Cary spends most of the film trying to escape being trapped by social convention and the imagery of the panes as symbolic prison bars is especially effective.
Interiors
The film opens from high perspective overlooking a beautiful New England town and the surrounding picturesque countryside. It is truly a breathtakingly beautiful slice of America that is replicated in the scenery viewed through that big window. But even though one of the main characters is almost always wearing a red plaid lumberjack coat and runs a nursery, there are very few exterior shots in the film. Not only do most scenes take place indoors, but they take place inside the home in the domestic locations most closely associated with women and wives: perfect parlors, tidy kitchens and bedrooms which only suggest the activities which happen there besides sleeping. Thanks to Cary’s young lover being an outdoorsman, it is a film notably lacking any significant screen time taking place in patriarchal domestic locations: offices, dens, workshops or even libraries.
Reflective Surfaces
Reflective surfaces are the dominant texture in the set design of the film. Mirrors seem to be everywhere and if there isn’t a convenient mirror, the windows are so clean that they offer a reflection. Cary, especially, is very often shot in such a way that one sees both her and her reflection in the frame. The most memorable single shot of the entire film is one in which Cary’s face is reflected back at her on the screen of a new television. This imagery is a favorite device of director Douglas Sirk who exploits it for the purpose of underscoring for the audience that, even if it doesn’t seem so, the story is a reflection of their own reality.
The Teapot
A Wedgewood teapot plays a significant role as imagery. The fact that it is Wedgewood means it was expensive and this is a signifier of Cary’s life in suburbia as a wife. But the teapot is broken which symbolizes the state of her life following the death of her husband. Her new young lover repairs the teapot and offers it to her in a fixed condition which is his way of offering her and alternative to life society has dictated for her. But lo and behold, shortly thereafter she is responsible for the teapot breaking beyond repair and it is tossed into the garbage. The entire conflict of the film is contained within the imagery of that simple teapot.
