Only the Beautiful

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-10

Part 1, Chapters 11-20

Part 2, Chapters 21-28

Part 2, Chapter 29-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Amaryllis

The amaryllis that Helen gifts Rosie becomes a symbol of hope and new life, for just as the teenage Rosie clings to this plant that has the potential to blossom into new beauty, she also bestows this name upon her newborn daughter, and in this way, the plant comes to represent hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable injustices. Even in the very beginning of the novel, the amaryllis represents something beautiful and comforting in Rosie’s world, for although she feels lonely and bereft of any true friends, she takes comfort in the idea that the dormant flower can be coaxed into blooming in wintertime if it is cared for correctly. In this way, the amaryllis becomes a metaphor for the dynamics of her life, for she too is currently forced into dormancy despite her potential to bloom.

When the amaryllis is taken away from her at the institution to which she is committed, Rosie keeps its symbolic hope alive by naming her daughter after the flower. As her narrative states, “[The baby] is like a perfect bloom that has pushed its way up out of the dark ground, just like the amaryllis Helen gave me. Beauty out of nothingness, hope out of the darkness” (119). In this way, her daughter comes to share the small and comforting beauty of the flower and represents a much more profound version of hope than the flower ever could. And just like the flower, Rosie’s daughter is also cruelly taken from her. As Amaryllis spends her first years in an orphanage, her fate mirrors that of the flower, for both are rejected and swept away as though they have no intrinsic value.

Synesthesia

The motif of the colors that cause Rosie to endure so many challenges are introduced on the very first page of the novel, and these colors are evoked again at the novel’s conclusion. The condition of having synesthesia is relatively rare, and as such, it provides a striking enhancement to the narrative, for the colors that Rosie sees due to her synesthesia create a unique lens through which she views the world; these colors affect everything that she experiences. The very first line of the book brings the reader into Rosie’s secret, for the narrative states, “The bursts of teal and lavender their summer rustlings always called to my mind” (3), and with this incongruous blend of imagery, the author emphasizes the distinctive connection between sounds and colors that characterizes Rosie’s perception of the world. The reality of Rosie’s synesthesia also influences all of her descriptions, and although the author gradually reveals the fact that Rosie has a specific neurological condition, the initial impression is only that the narrator is using particularly vivid descriptions. Eventually, Susan Meissner makes it explicitly clear that Rosie can literally see all the colors she uses to describe life. This motif allows the author to subtly imply the point that is made more forcefully and explicitly in the story of Brigitta: that each person is uniquely and intrinsically valuable even if their experience is radically different than the majority.

The Vineyard

A background element in the tale, the true nature of the vineyard as a place of peace is not truly made explicit until the second half of the narrative when Helen feels about the vineyard in similar fashion to Rosie. Helen actually dreams about trying to rescue Brigitta and take her back to America, back to “the vineyard,” which she describes as “that safe place” (276). Even the surrounding area is filled with more vineyards and a landscape that radiates peacefulness. As she drives through the countryside, Helen contemplates the “undulating hills of vineyards and fruit trees and hamlet towns where it seems nothing terrible ever happens” (253). Though she has spent decades away from the place, the vineyard still represents a place of refuge, provoking a real nostalgia for something lost and hoped for again.

After Helen discovers Amaryllis, the vineyard even provides a link between the three women—Rosie, Helen, and Amaryllis—since the only stories that Helen can tell Amaryllis about her mother take place at the vineyard, where they knew each other when Rosie was just a child. Rosie also sees the vineyard as a place of peace, but for her it also represents a lost life and a nostalgia that cuts too close to home, for it is the last place in which she spends time with her family before they are killed.