51 pages • 1 hour read
Beautiful Ugly
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Symbols & Motifs
Isle of Amberly
The Isle of Amberly is symbolic of hope and rebirth. Located in the Scottish Highlands, when Grady Green first arrives on the island, he regards “the surface of the sea” as “a shimmering pathway from the mainland to Amberly” (23). The island is situated under a “cloudless blue sky,” amidst “calm turquoise water,” and surrounded by “perfect white sand” (24). For Grady, this idyllic setting offers him the opportunity to restart his life in the wake of his wife Abby’s alleged disappearance. It appears like a beacon of hope and a promise of renewal. The island is physically separated from Grady’s past life in London, England, and offers him the chance to write without distraction and to rediscover himself in a new place.
At the same time, the Isle of Amberly is home to a community of women who regard the place as their refuge from the rest of the world, a place of rebirth for all of them. As Abby explains to Grady near the novel’s end: “The island treats everyone the same. The island takes what it needs from people and gives what it can. Amberly is home to women who were wronged by the world. A place of hope when all hope is lost. Everyone who lives here will do anything to protect it” (271). All 25 of the women living on Amberly call the island home, and it feels safe to them because no men live there. In most cases, men have caused the women’s pain and are responsible for their traumatic pasts. Their community of women frees them from their trauma and offers them the space to reinvent themselves.
Beautiful Ugly Manuscript
Grady’s Beautiful Ugly manuscript is symbolic of his self-involvement and obsession. Unable to write, Grady steals the late Charles Whittaker’s unpublished Book Ten manuscript and passes it off as his own. He proposes Charles’s manuscript idea to Kitty Goldman in hopes of securing his working relationship with her literary agency. His actions not only prove that he is morally duplicitous but also that he is self-absorbed enough to believe his crimes will go unpunished.
However, his work on the manuscript affects him in unexpected ways. The longer he works on editing it, the more lost he becomes in its fictional world. His obsessive work on the manuscript continues the novel’s exploration of the Interplay Between Reality and Fiction. In addition, the manuscript allows Grady to withdraw even further from human connection, intensifying the Psychological Effects of Isolation. In these ways, the manuscript becomes a narrative device that reveals Grady’s true nature and develops the novel’s themes.
The Edge Cabin
The Edge cabin is symbolic of isolation. When Grady first arrives at Charles’s former writing cabin, he expects it “might be a tad dusty and in need of a clean” (42). From the outside, it “looks old and rustic, but it has a certain charm about it” (46). Inside, Grady is surprised to find the cabin in pristine condition: “Smart-looking bookcases line any spare wall space” and all of the books are “arranged according to color” (48). In addition, the “bare, sanded floorboards” are covered in “sheepskin rugs” and the air “smells of scented candles and open fires, and…coffee” (48). These homey aspects of the space immediately comfort Grady; he’s never been here before, but he “feels like [he’s] coming home” (44).
The cabin’s deceptively welcoming environment reinforces Grady’s notion that he prefers to be alone rather than in the company of others. Because the cabin is so cozy, he isolates himself there, avoiding social interactions, drinking heavily, and poring over the manuscript. The more time he spends in the cabin on his own, the more alienated he becomes from the island community and the more divorced he becomes from reality.
The cabin setting effects a more ominous mood the longer Grady is on the island. He becomes so lost in his own, isolated world that he loses track of what is going on around him. The novel particularly uses the cabin to illustrate the negative psychological effects of isolation. With this setting, the novel suggests that even the most comforting, homey places can entrap one over time. Grady is a greedy character who takes advantage of the cabin setting but fails to imagine how the place could endanger him. Whenever he has uncanny experiences at the cabin, he dismisses them—attributing them to insomnia, whiskey, or bog myrtle tea. The cabin constantly warns Grady that his isolation is compromising his mental health, but he ignores these signs because he’s too self-involved.
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