These chapters of A.M. Homes’s novel Music For Torching find Paul and Elaine being faced with their worst fear, that their rebellion of burning down the house might not be permanent. The insurance money has come through and they will soon be able to return to their boring lives in a newly redone home. This leads to a series of radical decisions from the pair that further attempt to destroy their life together. The wreckage from from Paul and Elaine’s attempt to get away from their suburban life and loveless marriage is slowly being put back together and they both find themselves drastically rebelling from their previous lives, only to find fear paralyzing them from moving on from each other. The most obvious rebellion comes in the form of Paul’s new tattoo. He acquires the tattoo from the date, a form of rebellion in herself. At first Paul questions whether getting the tattoo is a good idea, but ultimately decides that he wants to change his body. “He’s into the idea of redefining the body” (165). He wants to redefine his body, much like he wanted to redefine his life by burning down the house. He is so pathetically unhappy that he will do anything to change it. The use of the word redefine in this …show more content…
Homes’s novel Music For Torching deals with a couple living in a loveless marriage, unwilling to leave it, for fear of being left in a worse situation than the one they currently in. Paul and Elaine spend their days rebelling against their suburban lives, knowing that they will always return to the hell that they have been living in. Knowing that they are always safe within the confines of their marriage. This keeps them from moving on, their fear stops them from moving on. For now at least they will continue to rebel in the only ways that they know how, never venturing too far from safety. Paul and Elaine have ended up right back where they started the novel, unhappy, in their house, and it seems that at least for the time being that is where they are going