Isolation And Loneliness In The Painted Door By Sinclair Ross

The main theme in “The Painted Door” by Sinclair Ross suggests that women, who are completely dependant on a male leader and living in isolation and loneliness, confined to a traditional gender role, will constantly be challenged by a feeling of incompleteness and dissatisfaction in life.
Women, who are unable to stand on their own without a male force leading their decisions and direction, become increasingly weak, such that they feel lost and incomplete when left to their own devices. The protagonist in the short story, Ann, is terrified of being left alone with a storm approaching, knowing that there is a stable of animals outside and forced by the risks that severe weather may cause. She is completely lost without her husband to guide her, seen at how often she changes her mind about what tasks she can do, to keep her occupied, until her husband’s return. Sinclair Ross demonstrates this dependency, when Ann tries to keep John from visiting his father: “You said yourself we could expect a storm. It isn’t right to leave me here alone. Surely I’m as important as your father” (1).

In the story, Ann is standing at the window and watching John leave her, while she is thinking of the ‘frozen silence’ outside, but also between her and her husband. Notwithstanding, the silence symbolizes their iced relationship and that although, they are together, Ann feels lonely. Ross shows this loneliness and isolation in his description of Ann’s surroundings: “It was the silence weighing upon her - the frozen silence of the bitter fields and shun-chilled sky - lurking outside as if alive, relentlessly in wait, mile-deep between her now and John”