The Sweetness of Forgetting

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses antisemitism and the Holocaust.

“But in the stillness of the off-season on the Cape, the swaying beach grass will turn golden as the days grow shorter; the birds migrating south from Canada will come to rest in great flocks; the marshes will fade into watercolor brushstrokes. And I will watch, as I always watch, from the window of the North Star Bakery.”

This opening passage establishes the setting of Cape Cod and the season of fall, a time of change as the Northern Hemisphere turns toward winter. The image of Hope looking out the window of the North Star bakery foreshadows Mamie’s characteristic gesture of looking for the evening star.

“It’s terrible to see [Mamie] slipping away. It’s like standing on the deck of a boat, watching the waves suck someone under, and knowing that there’s no life preserver to throw in.”

The metaphor of drowning captures the pain of losing a family member. This image anticipates a later image when Rose feels that her memories are lifelines slipping away from her, and when she imagines that she is swimming in memories when she is in a coma in later chapters.

“To speak the truth would be to open a floodgate. She could feel the water surging up behind the dam, and she knew it would spill over soon.”

In this first scene between Hope and Rose, water enters again in this image of the memories Rose wants to share before she loses them. Her silence has been a dam, a protective barrier, but like a dam, the memories might overwhelm and change the life she has protected if they do indeed spill out.