Ghosts
One of the most prevalent images is that of Gordon Shaw as a ghost, which has the effect of keeping all the characters stuck in the past, or making them feel like they’re being compared to an unattainable ideal. Leeds, for example, says “It’s his memory, his ghost, you might call it, haunting Nina” (66); Darrell and Marsden are frustrated that Nina can’t seem to let go of Gordon; Darrell decides young Gordon is more Gordon’s son than his own; and Nina views her son in the same way.
God
Nina is not religious, but admits that she wished she was, no doubt for the certainty and comfort believing in a higher power who has a plan for your life can bring. She says, memorably, “I wanted to believe in God at any price—a heap of stones, a mud image, a drawing on a wall, a bird, a fish, a snake, a baboon—or even a man preaching the platitudes of truth” (92). Her image here shows all the various ways man has construed God, all of which fail for her.
Affair
Marsden suspects Nina and Darrell are having an affair, and the imagery coursing through his thoughts is visceral and says more about his own jealousy as opposed to any reality: “there’s something in this room! something disgusting!...like a brutal, hairy hand, raw and red, at my throat!...stench of human life!...heavy and rank!...” (140).
Death
Nina has a vision of Gordon dying, saying she “had a dream of Gordon diving down out of the sky in flames and he looked at me with such sad burning eyes” (95). It’s a powerful image, especially because it’s not real—it is manufactured by her tortured psyche to condemn her for not sleeping with him before he left.
