45 pages • 1 hour read
Sarah AdamsWhen in Rome: A Novel
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
Roman Holiday
Adams uses the 1953 film, Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, as a structural framework for her narrative as well as a motif that symbolizes the novel’s thematic engagement with Loving Things for Sentimental Reasons. Amelia loves Audrey Hepburn movies because they remind her of her early relationship with her mother, and Roman Holiday signals Amelia’s attempts to reconnect with her truest self throughout the novel. In the movie, Hepburn’s character is a princess who has grown tired of her exhausting tour of European capitals. When she meets Peck’s character in Rome, the princess pretends to be a regular person and enjoys herself in the Italian capital. In the film, the princess knows her duty is to her country and her family, and she returns to her real life, leaving Peck’s character behind. As Amelia’s favorite film, Roman Holiday inspires her decision to road trip to Rome, Kentucky, the novel’s inciting incident.
Throughout When in Rome, Adams parallels Amelia’s arc with the arc of the princess in the film. Such a structural parallel raises the stakes of Amelia’s final choice between returning to the restrictions and responsibilities of her previous life as the princess did, or breaking from the film’s structure and writing herself a different ending. Amelia feels for Hepburn’s character, as she, too, has become exhausted with the pressures of her public life and just wants to feel like a normal woman. When she arrives in Rome, Amelia changes small things about herself as the princess does, and when she watches the movie with the Walker sisters, they point out all the similarities between Amelia and the film’s protagonist. As Amelia grows closer to Noah, the parallels she sees between herself and Hepburn’s character shift the significance of the film in her life from a beloved classic to a cautionary tale. Though she tries to see the ending of the movie as a happy ending for the princess, Amelia finds she now sees it as a tragedy. Amelia frequently compares Noah to Gregory Peck, often seeing the actor’s dejected face in the film when she thinks about leaving Noah. Adams breaks from the plot of the film as a structural model in her conclusion, giving Amelia and Noah the happy ending that Peck and Hepburn didn’t have.
Rae Rose
As the novel opens, Rae Rose symbolizes the way Amelia’s career has absorbed her true self, emphasizing The Inherent Tension Between Celebrity and Authenticity. Though she initially chose the stage name because it is her middle name and her mother’s nickname for her, Amelia comes to hate Rae Rose, telling Noah, “Rae Rose just absorbed me. I feel like I haven’t been Amelia in so long” (204). Everyone in her life refers to Amelia by her stage name, even her mother and the manager to whom she once felt close. She assumes everyone has forgotten her real name altogether. She initially thought “having people refer to [her] as Rae instead of Amelia would help [her] have some separation between [her] private and professional life” (203), but instead her celebrity persona essentially erased Amelia. In Rome, Amelia makes a point of telling people to call her by her first name, firmly drawing a line between herself and her public persona in an attempt to reconnect to her true self. Though she returns to using her stage name at the end of the novel, getting her authentic self back helps Amelia take back control of her life, her music, and her career.
Pancakes
Throughout the novel, Amelia’s interest in learning to make pancakes comes to represent her attempts to reclaim a sense of normalcy in her life, highlighting The Importance of Mental and Emotional Health. The first morning Amelia is in Rome, Noah makes her pancakes from scratch, something Amelia has never done. She feels as if this is a normal thing she has missed out on as a celebrity. When Amelia makes her list of things she wants to do before leaving Rome, learning how to make Noah’s pancakes is the most important bullet point. When Noah tells her his recipe is a secret, this only makes Amelia more determined to learn it. Amelia makes several attempts to perfect pancakes throughout the story, often starting a fire or making plates and plates of inedible disks. Yet, Amelia’s continued efforts demonstrate how hard she’s trying to reclaim her authentic self. Though she fails at many simple tasks such as using a landline and washing dishes, Amelia is determined to prove that she is not just a celebrity, but a tenacious person who longs for a family, a community, and a place to call home.
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By Sarah Adams
