The Nature of Fragile Things

The three-story San Francisco house that Sophie, Kat, and Martin move into in March 1905 represents the promise of a new family and stability for dispossessed Sophie, who has not lived in a comfortable home since Donaghadee. The house also becomes a symbol of Sophie and Martin’s ambitious makeshift marriage. Located on affluent Polk Street, the house is a deep blue and ivory color with smart black ironwork, which lends it and its inhabitants the aura of respectability (29). Moreover, the house’s fully-furnished state equips Martin and Sophie, two imposters to family life, with all the accoutrements of familial existence. The house’s readymade aligns with the readymade nature of the family that Sophie has joined, spinning the illusion that everything is established, when in truth their familial bonds are tenuous.

Sophie, who previously lived in a New York boarding house, is thrilled with the home, if a little disoriented by it. She has no idea “how much a house such as this one costs” and suspects that Martin accrued debt to finance it (30). Meanwhile, despite his investment in the house, Martin’s lack of attachment to the place corresponds to his lack of attachment to Sophie, the wife he also went to great lengths to procure.