Formalistic and Archetypal Writing Style of Amy Bloom - Research Paper Example

The settings of these short stories relate to the characters' personalities and motives, as well as their inner hopes and demons. The settings for “Silver Water” consist of psychiatric centers, the main characters' home, the woods, and musical places, such as the La Traviata. The psychiatric centers stand for Rose and Violet's father's occupation and Rose's troubled personality. The home symbolizes the closeness among the family members and how they are motivated to stay solid, despite their hardships.

The woods signify the chaos of finding oneself and accepting what one finds. The father has the hardest time accepting that the day has come, when her eldest daughter will be a client of his profession. The musical places signify the love for music of both Rose and her mother, as well as the sad melody that has crossed their lives as a family. The main setting for “Only You” is Alvin's parlor. The near absence of Marie's home indicates her lack of happiness in what is supposed to be her own sanctuary.

She feels happier in this parlor than anywhere else, and most especially, she feels more in tune with her identity, when she is with Alvin than with her own husband. Remarkably, this dissatisfaction with one's own “property” is evident also in Alvin, who wants to literally be like Marie. He is not happy with his own male body, the most private property of human beings. The characters of these two short stories are dynamic, where they change as they search for their identities. Violet and Rose are symbols for femininity, because they are names for flowers too, and yet they oppose the norms of womanhood.

Rose has turned inward to avoid the outside world and has ceased to be the perfect female. She changes her thin and beautiful self to a person who is no longer concerned of what people think about her. Violet has anchored herself for a long time to her idol, her sister. Rose started out to be a normal and lovely girl that Violet admired. Rose, however, suddenly loses her sanity, the source of which might be that she was sexually molested, but this is not fully verified in the story. Rose has become obsessed with sex for some time, which may be a sign of sexual molestation and repression of this sexual incident.

Violet also changes from an angry adolescent to a more accepting daughter. Her love for her sister never fades, since she works near their home and constantly visits them. Their sibling connection does not waiver, and she even feels her sister's absence in their house and finds her dying in the woods. “Marie” is an apt name for Marie, because it is simple and common, just like her. The same goes for Alvin, who resists changing his name to “Andre” or “Alain.” Marie transforms from an insecure woman, who always thinks that her husband is the “beautiful” one, to a more confident female.

Alvin also changes by becoming more expressive of his transvestite aspiration. At a Miami hotel, he changes into Marie's clothing and puts make-up on his face. He does this, because “.[Marie] is so beautiful he wants to feel what it is to be her, to be even closer to her” (Bloom “Only”). Bloom uses strong imagery for readers to strongly perceive what the characters are feeling. In “Silver Water,” Violet describes Rose's voice as a“