The Brooch (Symbol)
The brooch that Mr Mansell gives Isobel has a few different symbolic meanings when it first appears. With its flowers and pink wrapping paper, it is a symbol of traditional femininity and womanhood; it is also an embodiment of kindness, specifically the kindness that Isobel can expect outside her family. And after Isobel's mother refrains from taking the brooch, Isobel's present takes on yet more symbolic significances. Isobel "went and looked at it in the glass and stood admiring it. In one way or another, she would be wearing it all her life" (17). The brooch here is linked to Isobel's sense of assurance and self-possession after a victory over her mother, and moreover suggests Isobel's potential to move past her family and become an independent woman as "her life" moves forward.
The Dress (Symbol)
When Aunt Noelene visits, she leaves the young Isobel a remarkably pretty dress: "It was made of buttercup-below linen, the yoke and the sleeves embroidered in white cutwork to a heavy lace" (47). Like the brooch that Isobel receives from Mr Mansell, the dress can be understood as a symbol of the kind and hospitable world that lies beyond the control of Isobel's domineering mother. But the dress is also rapidly given a few other symbolic meanings as Isobel and her mother interact with it. When Isobel gives the dress (which is originally designated for her) to Margaret instead, it becomes a symbol of Isobel's state of grace. And when Isobel's mother destroys the dress (and elicits Isobel's curses), the dress becomes a symbol of Isobel's destroyed sense of grace and composure.
Joseph (Symbol/Motif)
As an adult, Isobel has a tendency to envision imaginary companions. Emma, a girl who supposedly befriended Isobel at the Business College, is one. Joseph, a male figure to whom Isobel turns during her time at Mrs Bowers' boarding house, is another: "She knew, when she thought about the dream Joseph, that he was like a father, really, more than a lover" (121). Based loosely on a mentor mentioned by the "special crowd," Joseph is the symbol of Isobel's ideal man and of the ideal man who desires her; for a brief time, Isobel even draws a comparison between Joseph and Trevor, the educated young man who attempts to initiate a relationship with her. But Joseph may also symbolize the absence of meaningful male influences in Isobel's life. She has grown up largely without a father and with few clear romantic attachments, and may see Joseph as the perfect vision of the kind of male presence that she has never truly enjoyed.
The Embroidery (Symbol)
In the final section of the novel, Isobel reflects on Miss Harman, on overbearing teacher who had criticized the original embroidery that Isobel produced during her girlhood. Yet the adult Isobel decides to try embroidery once more: "She still felt in her fingers the pleasure of placing the silk thread deftly and precisely" (161). Isobel's willingness to embrace embroidery anew is a symbol of how far she has come in terms of self-assurance and self-confidence, and of how capable she is of moving beyond her past. Instead of obsessing over childhood conflicts, she calls them to mind yet focuses on present pleasures.
Lives of the Saints (Motif/Allegory)
At a few different points in the narrative, Isobel pairs her own life against the lives of the Christian saints. The most obvious instance of this allegory of Isobel's own devising is "The Grace of God and the Hand-Me-Down," a section that finds Isobel both reading about the lives of the saints themselves and approximating saintly grace, humility, and acceptance in her own actions. The allegory or motif of sainthood occurs again in the novel's final section, though here the adult Isobel finds little or no inspiration in saintly narratives and saintly virtues: "It all came now, the calm elation, the sense of everything solved, of peace. She had received the Holy Ghost, or something" (172). Imitating a saint and thus living a Christian allegory is now just "something" that Isobel quickly remembers and quickly disregards. She will need to make her own way in the world, without obvious Catholic models.
