Unlucky Amethysts (Symbol)
Mr. Henshawe got the present from young lady who was in love with him; it was amethyst. However, he didn’t want Myra to find out about it, so he gave them to Nellie’s aunt. In her turn, Lydia acted as if it was her present and gave them back to him. Now, after so many years, Nancy is an owner, but she says that these amethysts are unlucky. For her they symbolize an unhappy fate of their real owner, and every time she looks at them, she feels “a chill” over her heart.
Love (Motif)
Love is a huge power, it makes us feel over the sky. For love we can do all the possible and even impossible things. Myra refuses from her uncle’s heritage in order to marry the man she loved. Oswald Henshawe is patent with his wife’s quirks and whims. He works hard to provide his wife with all that she needs, even if this job is humiliating for him. But sometimes love doesn’t last forever and Myra understands it as anyone else, now, when she is poor and miserable, she doesn’t believe in love anymore, she says she should have stayed with her uncle and it would be better for both of them.
The dawn (Allegory)
Myra Henshawe is old woman with two mortal maladies; she lives in a poor room with her “mortal enemy” whom she blames in all her troubles and regrets marrying him. It seems that life is torture for her and that there is anything in this world that brings her pleasure. But there is one thing, which brings Myra back to life. It is watching the Pacific and dawn. The dawn is a forgiving time for her, it is always the beginning, the beginning of new day, and a new day brings her hope and forgiveness. The world is not so bad for the old woman until she can watch the dawn. Dawns stand here as an alegory of a new life.
Money (Motif)
As Myra Henshawe says, “money is a protection, they are our cloak, and there is nothing worse than poverty.” When her husband was a rich man, Myra was happy; she even helped him and was nice with his “moneyed” friends, although she hated them, she did that for money, it was her main goal. And after Oswald lost his job, Myra considers herself the most miserable person in the whole world. She says that she didn’t deserve it, she should have stayed with uncle for his money. And then she would have been the happiest person in the world. Money becoms the main motif of the story, all the events more or less circle around it.
