payment page
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Ivory statues
Granny’s ivory statues symbolize the Sinclairs’ ability to possess anything, regardless of whom it hurts. After Gat opens Cadence’s eyes to how the world works, she confronts Harris with ivory’s illegality. Harris reveals that he knows quite well ivory’s cost, in monetary and human terms, and is simply determined to attain ownership as he pleases. Cadence and the Liars choose neither to restore the statues to their rightful owners, nor to sell the statues and donate the money to conservation. Instead, they smash them to shards on the dock and brush it into the ocean, beginning the cycle of destruction that ends in death. Thus the Liars, but Cadence in particular, continue the Sinclair legacy of treating possessions carelessly and selfishly.
Golden retrievers
At the time Cadence tells her story, the Sinclairs have five golden retrievers, descendants of Granny’s breeders. Bosh, Grendel, and Poppy belong to Penny and Cadence and are well trained. Prince Philip and Fatima belong to Harris and were never properly trained. Their names are all literary and historical allusions that are far too elevated for goofy, fluffy, smelly dogs, much like the status symbols Cadence accuses Penny of constantly purchasing. Dogs typically symbolize faithful companionship, like what Cadence hopes for and envisions from the Liars, as well as unconditional love, which is otherwise missing from the novel. But they’re also depicted here as stupid and useless, as Penny’s futile dog-breeding business that can’t turn a profit or Granny’s collection of dogs depicted as another of her hobbies, along with gardening, sewing, and cooking. Cadence is understandably broken-hearted when she discovers their loss and her role in it, but notably, she does so before she realizes what happened to the Liars and Clairmont.
Cuddledown
Harris built homes for all his daughters, including Cuddledown for Bess, who has four children. She has long been unhappy with the house and has wanted to Harris to redecorate, arguing that it’s the oldest of all the houses and too small for her large family. Thus, despite the house’s cozy name, it’s a source of contention among the family members. During summer seventeen, Bess refuses to take her family there, leaving it to the Liars, who make an absolute mess of it. They discover they can see the entire island from the roof, but they also let soda bottles run off the edge, leave the broken glass on the porch, and refuse to clean up after themselves. Penny’s continual chiding of Cadence about the mess and her reminders of Bess’s feelings remind the reader that Cadence has a mess of her own to clean up that she’s neglecting, even as she apparently searches for the truth.
Beechwood Island
Cadence occasionally describes the time she spends in Vermont or Europe, but she insists that her real life happens on Beechwood Island. She feels it’s the only place where she can be herself, and she knows it’s the only place she and Gat can be in love together. She uses the island to hide from the realities that he might like other girls, that they might face prejudice, or that they could be relegated to a life of poverty if Harris chose. Likewise, the other Sinclairs go to Beechwood to hide from the world and become their most terrible selves. There, the aunts drink heavily and fight bitterly with one another about the inheritance in front of their children and their father. Gat reminds the Liars that the island can’t or shouldn’t be owned, suggesting that the family’s questionable claim to land that, by rights, belongs to others might be at the root of some of the family’s problems. Ultimately, Cadence’s desire to protect not her love for Gat, but the love that exists between them specifically when they live on the island, apart from the realities of the outside world, result in her destruction of it all.
