Perfect Bowl example essay topic

The bowl in "Janus" symbolizes many thoughts and feelings that Andrea has about her life. The bowl seems to be the main character in some senses in this story. The reader is told in the opening sentence "The bowl was perfect" (205). This is a good beginning to the story because Andrea believes this to be true because it represents feelings she has about many things. Andrea, a real estate agent, uses her bowl to help sell houses by placing it on a table for potential buyers to look at. She believes that the bowl is the reason for her success as a real estate agent.

The perfect bowl was a gift to Andrea from a lover she had. She did not really want to buy the bowl at first, but her lover bought it for her anyways. The day he bought her the bowl was the same day that he gave her the choice to start a life with him and leave her old one or he would have to leave. She did not choose and he said that she "was always too slow to know what she really loved" (208).

This was ironic because Andrea had said that when he had bought her the bowl that "in time she became more attached to the bowl than to any of his other presents" (208). It took her time to decide to love this bowl, just like it had taken her time to "know what she really loved" (208). Frequent thoughts Andrea has are about her bowl and what her bowl represents. In one situation she leaves her bowl at a house that she is trying to sell. She begins to freak out, because she is so frightened that something might happen to it.

She goes back to the house right away and retrieves the bowl. She compares the situation to other stories she had heard about, "Sometimes there were stories in the paper about families forgetting a child somewhere and driving to the next city. Andrea had only gone a mile down the road before she remembered" (206). This comparison she has shows that she has a love for this bowl that goes beyond the object. The bowl represents thoughts that she has about how her relationship might have been with her lover if she had not let him leave. "She kept it on the table, because she liked to see it", it reminded her of the memories she has of time she spent with her lover.

When she left the bowl behind "Andrea wondered how she could have left the bowl behind. It was like leaving a friend at an outing - just walking off" (206) this is a direct reference to the last time she had seen her lover, when he turned and walked away. These thoughts stay with her and are brought out more and more when she is around the bowl. Many feelings Andrea has are brought out when she is around the bowl or thinks about the bowl. Andrea loves the bowl, because to her it represents her relationship she had with her lover. Her relationship with her lover was an enjoyable time in her life, and now that it that it is over she feels as if there really is not much more left to her life.

She reveals her feelings when she thinks "to what her life would be without the bowl" (208). No matter where the bowl was Andrea never put anything in it, she specifically asked her husband not to put his keys in it, "it was meant to be empty" (206). The bowl also represents the way she feels about love in her life, it is empty and will always be empty, since her lover is not in her life anymore. At the end of the story she compared parts of the bowl to a vanishing point in the horizon, just as her lover left her and walked away vanishing into the horizon. The bowl in "Janus" represents many of Andrea's thoughts, feelings, and memories.

The word "Janus" comes from Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates and doorways, depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions. I believe that this bowl is a symbol of one of the directions that Andrea looks, back. She looks back at her time with her lover when she thinks about the bowl.