The Marriage Portrait

Ideas of duality and switching between two variations of the same type permeate O’Farrell’s novel, especially with regard to the two main characters, Alfonso and Lucrezia.

The painter’s assistant Maurizio aptly compares Alfonso to the Roman god Janus, noting that he has “two faces, two personalities” and can change between them by snapping his fingers (258). The Roman god, who gives his name to the first month of the year, is associated with beginnings and endings. Therefore, he can be both an initiator of conflict and a peacemaker. This is relevant to Lucrezia, as Alfonso both initiates her married life and adult identity and presides over their end when he intends to strangle her. In the beginning of his relationship with Lucrezia, he exposes affectionate playfulness when he pretends to be her pet mouse or gifts her the picture of the stone marten, knowing her love of wild beasts. He professes his admiration of the stone marten as “an attractive yet shy” wild animal, suggesting that he admires similar traits in Lucrezia, yet he also wants to see both of them “tamed in oils,” reduced to a harmless, biddable state on the canvas (106).

Alfonso’s need for power in the face of an alarming fact he cannot control—his infertility—causes him to alternate between extreme courtesy and self-control and brutal violence.