Comparing The Painted Door And The Fall Of A City

Isolation and alienation can have a great impact on relationships. In “The Painted Door” by Sinclair Ross and “The Fall of a City” by Alden Nowlan, both main characters struggle with being secluded from others which affects their relationships with others. The authors use setting, symbolism, and conflict to capture and describe the influence of isolation. Both ‘The Painted Door’ and “The Fall of a City” used setting to describe the mood and the feelings of the characters. Ross describes the farm Anne lives on to be “vast and bleak a wilderness” and the “region strangely alien to life.” This intensifies the feeling of seclusion and the mood of the story much like in “The Fall of a City.” Nowlan begins the story with describing the rain as “great, pulsating sheets of water” and the sound of it as a “muted banjo twanging on the roof.” With

Throughout the story, Anne is constantly playing with the fire because the “crackling” was the only thing she could hear in the silence. The fire represents Anne’s passion and it grows more and more intense until after Anne commits infidelity, then the fire was “burned to a few spent embers.” In “The Fall of a City”, Teddy’s characters in his fantasy world are symbolic of his uncle and himself. The King of Upalia represents Teddy himself, and the respect he wishes to have. Zikla, the sworn enemy of Upalia symbolizes Teddy’s uncle, which interestingly was hanged in his fantasies. The fire is also a symbol of what Steven has that John doesn’t. After Anne cheated on John, she sought for cold and “crossed to where the draft was bitter, and for a long time stood unflinching on the icy floor.” Also, another phrase that is constantly repeated in “The Painted Door” was “the clock ticked.” The ticking of the clock is a perpetual reminder to Anne that her youth is running away and every minute you spend alone is an opportunity wasted to do something fun and