The Red Shoes

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2014

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Colors of Paint

To make their home more pleasing, the speaker and their significant other paint the walls. However, as the speaker discovers, the alteration is to no avail, and the relationship fractures much like the floor splinters. The colors used for painting symbolically show the shift from a warmer relationship to a more fragile one. At first, the rooms are in hues like “cinnamon” and “Aegean blue” (Line 26) but are soon repainted to “eggshell” and “gris-perle” (Line 26), which are colors very close to white, a shade of absence. The speaker certainly feels they are walking on eggshells in the violent world of their surroundings and during their partner’s erratic behavior. That the paint colors show the relationship’s change is confirmed by the sentence after the notation of repainting, as the couple “[fights] and [the partner] tore all [the] letters and diaries” (Line 27).

Red Slippers & Mice

In the movie The Red Shoes, as well as Andersen’s fairytale, the “red shoes” are evilly enchanted and the heroine cannot stop dancing. Symbolically, the shoes are both treasure and curse, which is much like the speaker in the poem’s relationship. The red slippers metaphorically show that what was once pleasurable is now fallen to disarray. The shoes have been “buried” (Line 1) under the “splintered” (Line 2) “floorboards” (Line 1), meaning that what was once a good relationship is now hidden away by a damaged exterior the couple has tried to mend several times. Although “[the slippers] must have been for dancing” (Line 39), they are “thin soled” (Line 39) and cannot sustain a lot of activity or weight. They are too damaged to be worn, just as the relationship becomes too damaged to continue. Mice have “nested” (Line 2) in the slippers and “gnawed” (Line 43) the “ribbon[s]” (Line 41) used to keep the shoes on. This seems to be a metaphor for the addiction that plagues the partner. The couple once nestled into a life, set up their home, and decorated their walls, but when the addiction began to gnaw at the partner, it all fell apart. The slippers are filled with useful things at first—“talc” (Line 40) and “rosin” (Line 41), which help a ballet shoe stay on. Now the “ribbon[s]” (Line 41) are broken and the shoes are useless, much like the relationship.

Ticking Minutes

After Junior dies, the speaker takes a taxi to the cemetery to pay their respects. When the taxi driver gests lost, the speaker notes the “many ticking minutes” (Line 37) they spend “among the slender white spikes of the graves” (Lines 37-38). Taxis charge by time, so during the many minutes that go by, the fare increases. However, the “ticking minutes” (Line 37) also call to mind the passage of time. Here, the speaker notes the “slender white spikes of the graves” (Line 38) they see, calling to mind the many deaths she’s witnessed. The body count in the poem is high, including the three teenagers gunned down in the restaurant, Irma’s suicide or murder, and Junior’s death from pneumonia after his drug addiction.

The speaker’s partner also seems to be in trouble as they’re in lockdown at a psychiatric hospital. The markers being described as “spikes” (Line 38) indicates the speaker is impaled with these ideas of damage and death. The definition of “Calvary” (Line 35) in the place name also suggests that this is an experience of pain for the speaker and a realization that their life is not headed in the right direction. Further, it is implied through these images that addiction may eventually kill the partner or the speaker. The speaker is addicted to the idea of making a “nest” (Line 2) with the partner, but in this moment, they realize nothing but destruction can come of the relationship if it continues to “tick” (Line 37).