The Good Sister

Rose and Fern wear identical bracelets engraved with their names and the accompanying botanical images. Fern notes early on that Rose often taps her bracelet against Fern’s as a sign of warning or caution. The bracelets are the sisters’ “way of talking to each other without talking” (15). The closed circle of the bracelet is a symbol of the close bond between Rose and Fern, the safe bubble of their sisterly world and the perfect loop of their communication. With the bracelets, Rose and Fern do away with the ambiguity of words, talking in a rarefied, unambiguous language. The bracelets also signify Nina’s love for her daughters and the special relationship they share as twins.

As the narrative proceeds, the symbol of the matching bracelets becomes more complex. As Fern observes, the perfect system of communication has already failed her and Rose once, “the one time Rose couldn’t stop me from doing the wrong thing” (16). Fern doesn’t know it at this point of the plot, but Rose actually made Fern do the wrong thing. This shows the perfect communication of the bracelets is an illusion; there is a vast gap between Fern’s perception and Rose’s actions.