Hawaiian Pearl Necklace Symbol Analysis

The Hawaiian pearl necklace symbolizes the secrecy and misunderstanding at the heart of Ruth and LuLing’s relationship. Years back, toward the beginning of Ruth and Art’s relationship, the couple vacationed in Hawaii, and Ruth forgot LuLing’s birthday. In a desperate attempt to redeem herself, Ruth repackaged the cheap “Tahiti-style glass pearls” she had bought for herself in a gift shop in Kauai and gave them to LuLing, hoping to convey that she’d been thinking about her. Unfortunately, Ruth messes up a second time when she tells LuLing the pearls are “nothing much,” which LuLing takes as a gesture of false modesty, alluding to the pearls’ pricelessness. From that point forward, whenever LuLing proudly brings out the pearls to impress her friends and family, Ruth feels ashamed about lying to her mother and being an inadequate daughter. The pearls thus represent how engrained secrecy and deception are in Ruth and LuLing’s relationship—after all, LuLing is so accustomed to deception that she automatically assumes Ruth’s comment about the pearls is untrue.