The Unmaking of June Farrow

An important family heirloom, the locket watch is described as a unique piece of jewelry. With a mother-of-pearl watch face, it “[is] set with not two hands, but four, and each of them varie[s] in length. It [is] a strange piece of jewelry that most closely resemble[s] a watch […] The hands never move[], two of them perpetually stuck on the one” (10).

The watch is eventually revealed to be the mechanism by which the Farrow women determine where to travel in time. June eventually realizes that Birdie (Annie) must have set the watch to 1951. The locket watch becomes a symbol of the weight of time. As June describes, “The locket watch around my neck was growing heavier by the day, a tightening noose that felt more and more like a ticking clock” (165). The locket watch symbolizes the family curse and its negative impact on the women in the novel. The locket watch is also a physical object that anchors June in time. Solid metal, it contrasts with the idea of fading and unraveling that the Farrow curse entails, even as it relates to the curse’s function.