The VanHoebeek Portraits
The VanHoebeek portraits are silent sentinels, watching over the denizens of the house with their solemn stares. They are old, proper, stern, and, as Danny puts it, very married. Their elegant, eternal portraits belie the tempestuous nature of their lives, paralleling the experiences of the later inhabitants as well. The house and the VanHoebeeks might seem to have everything together, remain unchanging, and impress those on the outside, but the Conroys and Smiths and associated characters are all indelibly—and, mostly, deleteriously—affected by it.
The House
The imagery of the massive, dark, cold, grand, old-fashioned, and imposing house permeates the entire novel, but Patchett's first description of it sets out what we are to envision for the rest of the novel. It "appeared to float several inches above the hill it sat on" (9) and had glass windows all throughout the front with "wrought-iron vines" (9). There are fancy banisters and mantels, which are alleged to have come from a castle. It is three stories high and is "too much of a house for anyone" (9). There's a deep foyer, an observatory, a terrace, a "long marble floor" (10), a garden, a wide lawn, peony beds, and more. It is a place of grandeur—but also, for most of the characters, it's a place of pain.
Andrea and the Portraits
At the moment Andrea chooses to announce that she is kicking Maeve and Danny out of the house, she is "standing there beneath the two massive VanHoebeeks, just where we first found her all those years before" (91). This image is significant because, as Patchett says, it parallels Andrea's first visit with the last time the children will see her (in this state, at least). Andrea's choice to stand before the portraits also gives her a sense of power and ownership. She wants to present this image to Maeve and Danny to solidify her control: her standing under the portraits gives the impression that the VanHoebeeks (and the house) are sanctioning what is about to happen.
The Ballroom
Maeve's description of the ballroom when Cyril first brings Elna and Maeve to see their new house is a vivid and almost amusing image. It is such a thoroughly bad first impression that it's easy to understand Elna's despair. Part of the ceiling has fallen in and "it looked like a bomb had gone off" (177). There are bits of smashed plaster on the floor; the raccoons got in and "ripped the mattress from the little bedroom to make their nest...and there was fluff and feathers everywhere" (ibid). There is a horrid smell, "like a wild animal and the shit of that animal and the dead cousin of that animal all at the same time" (ibid).
