50 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth StroutLucy by the Sea
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Islands
When Lucy Barton first arrives at the house William Gerhardt has rented in Maine, she is overwhelmed with the natural landscape. She looks out across the ocean where there are “two islands, one was small and the other was bigger, and they had a few evergreen trees on them, and you could see the rocks that surrounded them” (18). These islands become a motif that Lucy connects to several times during the story. The sight of them helps to ground Lucy, as she is feeling lost amid the pandemic upheaval and the dislocation of moving from New York to rural Maine.
The islands put her at ease because they remind her of her childhood: “[I]n the middle of fields of soybeans and corn there had been one tree in the field, and I had always thought of that tree as my friend. Now, as I looked at them, these two islands felt almost like that tree had once been to me then” (18). Even though she is deeply entrenched in urban life and has been for many years, Lucy reconnects with nature. She returns to a connection she felt as a child, to the tree. In addition, the islands change as the story continues: “[T]here were the islands straight in front of us, with a lot more green on them now, and the water slapped against the rocks without stopping” (168). This transformation indicates signs of life and hope after the long winter, symbolizing Lucy’s own reemergence after months of pandemic isolation.
The motif of islands and nature connects to The Loneliness of Being Human. The islands could also be seen as symbols of Lucy and William: They are together in their isolation and yet still separate, as Lucy admits all humans are, in the end.
Spring
The novel begins in March of 2020, the onset of the Covid pandemic in New York. Strout emphasizes the unreality of this time; she juxtaposes images of spring with the devastation that New York experiences. This contrast is akin to how, when one is grieving, it seems wrong for the world to just continue.
As Lucy puts it: “The trees were bare, and I thought again how in New York there were already flowering trees, and tulips in front of the buildings. It seemed strange to me that the world of New York would remain so beautiful as all those people were dying” (42). Spring traditionally symbolizes rebirth. Strout contrasts that symbolism with the death that was everywhere in New York that spring.
Strout contrasts rebirth and death with other symbols. After a rare happy day in April, Lucy finds a robin’s egg: “Oh, it was a thing of beauty!” (58). Traditionally, robins are the first sign of spring; robin’s eggs in particular symbolize rebirth. Lucy also finds hope in simple dandelions: “And then one morning when I went out for my walk I saw a bright yellow dandelion growing by the edge of the driveway near the bottom of the hill. I stared at it, I could not stop staring at it” (73). This suggests Lucy’s coming out of the shock of pandemic isolation—“the leaves had finally started to come out and there was a sense of green and bright light; I thought the trees looked like young girls, tentative in their beauty.” (87). With these symbols, Strout shifts the meaning of spring. Instead of juxtaposing spring with covid, it becomes a sign of hope and renewal for Lucy.
The Tides
Lucy pays attention to the tides off the coast, and comes to understand them as a metaphor for her own feelings. This is a part of Lucy’s increased connection to nature, and the comfort that she finds with it: “I got to know the tides; I mean I got to understand when they went out and came back in, and they comforted me” (79). This motif is threaded throughout the novel as she processes events: the Covid pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, and the January 6 insurrection, as well as the more personal events in her life.
Like the tides, Lucy’s emotions surrounding these events wax and wane as she reaches for understanding. Early on in her stay in Maine, Lucy is still processing the way her life has changed and the effects of the pandemic: “The sadness that rose and fell in me was like the tides” (80). In reference to her relationship with William, she says: “I did not know how I felt about William. My feelings changed about him, they went up and down with the tides” (88). The tides emphasize Lucy’s state of mind. At one point in the novel, Lucy struggles with the idea that, without David, her apartment in New York is not a home, and that the dislocation scares her. The impending rise of the tide echoes the rise in her fear and tension—“the tide was coming in, and the water was lazily slapping at the rocks below me” (175).
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By Elizabeth Strout
