Images of Betrayal
The novel is replete with the images of betrayal as Melchior cheats on different women. His father was betrayed by his mother and he killed her along with her lover. Melchior betrayed Dora's mother and left her after she got pregnant; moreover, Melchior married Lady A or Wheelchair, but she also betrayed him. On his hundredth birthday, he gets to know that Saskia and Imogen were not his daughters and Wheelchair was involved with another man. Daisy who was a famous actress cheated on her husband for Melchior and Melchior divorced Wheelchair prior to knowing about the actual parentage of Saskia and Imogen. Furthermore. Melchior's son Tristram betrays Tiffany. The images of betrayal have been extended to three generations of the family.
Images of Fondness
Dora and Nora's relationship with grandma chance depicts the images of fondness. Grandma loves the twin sisters after the death of their mother and takes care of the girls. She was more than a mother for the twin sisters and reaches to help them everywhere. Dora says, "She was our air-raid shelter, she was our entertainment, she was our breast." The images of fondness are also evident from the relationship of Dora and Nora with Wheelchair. They look after the wife of their father when her own daughters left her.
Images of Reunion
Melchior celebrates his hundredth birthday and invites everyone. The party represents the images of reunion as Dora and Nora meets their father and get recognition from him. Melchior did not accept them as his daughters and they remained deprived of fatherly love throughout their lives. In the party, Melchior shows his live for Dora and Nora and fills the vacuum that was left by him in their lives. The sisters forgive their father and reunites with him.
Peregrine also reunites with the family and sneaks with Dora during the party. Tristram also meets Tiffany and asks for forgiveness. The party also demonstrates Lady A. as getting rid of a burden. She tells Melchior that Saskia and Imogen are not his daughters and Dora tells everyone that they are Peregrine's daughters. All the daughters reunites with their fathers at the end of the novel.
Images of Shakespeare's Play
The author has employed the imagery of Shakespeare's plays in the novel. Melchior performs the plays on different stages and Dora and Nora accompanies him in their performance on Midsummer Night's Dream. The novel is evocative of Shakespeare's poem "All the world's a stage." The actors varies but the show goes on as Melchior performs in place of his father and Dora and Nora follow the footsteps of their father. The plastic crown also demonstrates King Lear's crown and there are images of Melchior keeping the crown with much regard.
