The Blinds in the Train Symbol Analysis

The closed blinds in the train symbolize Rosemary’s rumored sexual promiscuity, obscuring the “light” of her supposed innocence and purity. Dick is haunted by the image of Rosemary in a locked train carriage with another man, imagining Hillis asking Rosemary, “Do you mind if I pull down the curtain?” so that they might have some privacy. In this wretched vision, Dick hears Rosemary reply, “Please do. It’s too light in here.” Here then, lightness symbolizes purity, innocence, and virginity, and when Rosemary grants permission for Hillis to pull down the blind and block out the light, she welcomes a sort of sordid darkness.

While Collis Clay is rather unconcerned with the revelation, describing it in passing, Dick cannot put the image out of his mind, and his imaginary dialogue between Hillis and Rosemary reoccurs several times in the novel. Dick’s attraction to Rosemary lies in her supposed innocence; she embodies youth and beauty, characteristics that Dick longs to control and possess. His romantic affair with her makes him feel younger, freer, and more powerful, as he relishes the feeling of holding back time. When he learns from Clay, then, that Rosemary might not be as pure as she seems, Dick’s life begins to unravel. Dick is conflicted; the figure of Rosemary as a delicate, naïve, young “Daddy’s Girl” (the title of the movie she’s in) can no longer be sustained, but he somehow wants her more than ever. On the one hand, Dick is excited by his desire for Rosemary—whom he can now perceive as a sexual being—but he is also fundamentally disappointed because she was supposed to represent the hope and goodness of the younger generation, unspoiled by the horrors of World War I. Rosemary’s ambiguous sexuality, therefore, and the discussion around it, represents both the loosening of traditional and puritanical moral codes during the Jazz Age and the feared loss of innocence felt by society in the aftermath of the war.