The Golden Bowl

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1904

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Book 1

Part 1, Book 2

Part 1, Book 3

Part 2, Book 4

Part 2, Books 5-6

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Symbols & Motifs

The Golden Bowl

The titular golden bowl functions as an important symbol throughout the novel. As different characters view the object, the bowl becomes a blank slate onto which they are able to project their own characters. As such, the symbolism of the bowl grows and changes across the narrative. When they first view the golden bowl, Charlotte and Amerigo are taking part in an illicit shopping trip. They are evidently aware of the dishonest nature of their trip, as they venture beyond the parts of London where they might be spotted. This unspoken guilt relates to the prior relationship that they enjoyed before Amerigo was engaged to Maggie. Charlotte and Amerigo ended their relationship because they were too poor to get married. Even now that Amerigo is engaged, however, they cannot deny their lingering affection for one another. Their poverty is markedly different, however. Amerigo comes from a wealthy family which has fallen on hard times. He spots the bowl and immediately knows that it is flawed. Charlotte, from a more modest background, is less familiar with the lavish objects that are so familiar to Amerigo. She is fascinated by the flawed bowl, and she cannot exit herself from the store, just as she cannot exit herself from the situation. The flawed bowl captivates her, just as Amerigo and their flawed relationship continue to captivate her. Neither of them buys the bowl, but its memory lingers in their thoughts as a symbolic moment of significance wherein they noticed the flaws in their respective relationships yet remained captivated.

The unbought bowl becomes a conscious symbol of flawed marriages. The split in the crystal, Charlotte is told, will inevitably crack but it will do so in a spectacular fashion. The crack makes the bowl less valuable, and the shopkeeper is willing to sell it for cheap. The crack in the bowl is a symbol of the flawed marriage; the relationship between Charlotte and Amerigo—as well as the relationship between Maggie and her father—is a near-invisible flaw which threatens to break apart the marriage at any given moment. The marriages are rendered less valuable and less legitimate by their near-invisible faults. Maggie’s devotion to her father and her husband’s affair may be hidden from society, but they threaten to obliterate the marriages that are so important to her. Like the bowl, the seemingly valuable marriages are made less treasured by the flaws that are so difficult to detect but, once acknowledged, cannot be ignored.

At the end of the novel, Maggie purchases the bowl and presents it in her home. She does so as a symbol challenge to her husband, choosing the symbolism of the bowl to assert her agency over her marriage. Her attention has been brought to the flaws in her marriage, as the shopkeeper has drawn attention to the flaws in the golden bowl. Fanny, in response, smashes the bowl. She does so, ironically, as a symbolic gesture, one which is designed to force the others to confront reality and to stop them from dwelling purely in the realms of symbolism. Confronted with the shards of the broken bowl, Amerigo and Maggie must talk directly and sincerely about what has happened. Through this confrontation, in the aftermath of the smashing of the symbolic bowl, they manage to save their marriage. Maggie’s assertion, followed by Fanny’s destruction, is a symbolic act that seeks to move beyond symbolism.

Fawns

Fawns is a large country estate where Adam Verver spends his time while he is in England. The estate once belonged to a wealthy English family, who now live nearby and rent the property to the visiting American businessman. The rental arrangement symbolizes the nature of the Verver’s relationship with Edwardian Britain. Like most of the characters in the novel, Adam and Maggie are not English, but, while living in England, they are beholden to many of the cultural and social expectations which govern English society. They inhabit the vacated house of an old English family, playing the role of wealthy English people while retaining their status as outsiders. The Outsiders try to play the role of English aristocrats, inhabiting the old English buildings and replicating the old English systems of etiquette. The more they try to pretend to be English, however, the more they demonstrate that they are not in their homeland. They do not own Fawns, they are merely renting it, passing through it in an attempt to temporarily occupy an English identity which, to them, remains elusive.

The geographic location of Fawns also represents the characters’ removal from the core of British society. They inhabit their own world, and the rented property emphasizes their removal from the travails of the broader world. Locked into their marriages, affairs, and family bonds, the characters in The Golden Bowl are not concerned with the world around them: They are more concerned with their interpersonal relationships. Fawns, removed from London, and detached from other buildings, is a symbol of this separation from the broader society. At Fawns, the characters can occupy their own reality in which their interests and desires are elevated to the utmost importance. Fawns functions as a symbolic bubble of self-importance, a playground for the characters to interact, where they are only reliant on one another. As they perform the roles of English aristocrats, they are surrounded only by a carefully selected cabal of like-minded guests, those who wish to play in their meticulously crafted unreality.

Adam Verver loves Fawns. When he is in England, Fawns functions as his home and his base of operations. While he has toured Europe with his daughter to build a museum collection for his hometown, Fawns allows him to indulge his desire to be a wealthy British aristocrat without the ties that bind him to the United States. At the end of the novel, however, Adam agrees to return to America with Charlotte. In doing so, he agrees to leave Maggie, Amerigo, and the Principino behind in Fawns. This deliberate, calculated relinquishment of the property is a symbolic gesture. By leaving his beloved Fawns and returning to his obligations in America, Adam Verver is choosing his wife over his daughter at his daughter’s request. He is choosing the obligation of his hometown and his wife over his more emotional attachment to his daughter, particularly at a time when his attachment to his daughter threatens to destroy all of their lives in some abstract manner. Adam may not know the full details of the affair between his son-in-law and his wife, but the significance of his symbolic act suggests that he understands the scale of the situation. He must forsake something he loves—the property of Fawns—for the sake of something he loves even more, Maggie. Adam loves Fawns. His love for the property is what makes his departure so significant, as the other characters understand the symbolism of his departure. Adam takes his wife back to America, leaving Maggie and Amerigo to inhabit the world that he has left behind.

Antiques

Adam Verver’s purpose in life is to collect antiques and exhibit them in a museum in his hometown. Adam, a millionaire widower, has a special relationship with the antiques, artifacts, and objects that he collects on his long trips. He first began his collection on his honeymoon and, in the wake of his wife’s death, he has continued his journey and continued to collect antiques to present in his hometown. His desire to collect antiques is an example of Adam trying to do something with the vast fortune he has amassed. His collection has made him famous; at several points in the novel, people are thrilled to meet the famous antique collector, Adam Verver. Yet this collection in itself does not give Adam happiness. Rather, the process itself is what gives his life meaning. The accumulation of antiques for a collection which is never shown in the novel is a symbolic attempt to recapture the meaning and purpose that Adam has lost in the aftermath of his wife’s death. He takes Maggie on his trips as a way to fill the void in his life left by the death of his wife. Adam does not necessarily love antiques: He loves the purpose and the opportunity that the pursuit of antiques creates, as it allows him an opportunity and an excuse to spend time with Maggie now that he can no longer spend time with his wife.

Adam’s desire to collect antiques is also suggestive of a deeper guilt that pervades his life. Adam is a sincere and honest man. He knows that he is not particularly great in any aspect, to the point where he is almost embarrassed to be so well-known, even in the relatively small antique community. His wealth has not brought him happiness; his wealth did nothing to save his wife’s life. Instead, his wealth provides him with an opportunity to foster the social bonds that give his life meaning. In turn, however, he feels guilty for so self-indulgently using his money to spend time with Maggie and tour Europe for his amusement. The collection of antiques and the exhibition which he plans work together to symbolize Adam’s unspoken guilt. He feels as though he needs to do something meaningful with his wealth and contribute to his community in some fashion. He plans a show of antiques and treasures as an exhibit of his worthiness, as a way to assure the people of his hometown that he has not merely frittered away his fortune on his own amusement. Instead, the collection of antiques is a demonstration of Adam’s desire to demonstrate his worthiness to his peers. He wants to show the people in his community that he has made them proud.

Amid Adam’s pursuit of the world’s most fascinating and valuable antiques, his daughter Maggie finds a husband. Amerigo is a Roman prince whose family has fallen on hard times. For Adam, Amerigo is practically an antique in his own right. Adam covets Amerigo’s marriage to Maggie because it enjoins the Verver family to the ancient families of Italy. By marrying his daughter into the Italian aristocracy, Amerigo functionally marries Maggie to an antique. Amerigo is a relic, a symbol of a distant past, and Adam adds him to the collection as he would any other antique. In fact, the reason why Adam and Amerigo struggle to bond is because Adam struggles to view Amerigo as a person, rather than just another addition to his collection.