The Price of Salt

“But the feeling bore no resemblance to what she had read about love. Love was supposed to be a kind of blissful insanity.”

Therese’s definition of love involves hyperbole—an extra-dramatic feeling. She doesn’t feel this “blissful insanity” for Richard, setting up the conflict between the pair and foreshadowing Therese’s intense feelings for Carol.

“Their eyes met at the same instant, Therese glancing up from a box she was opening, and the woman just turning her head so she looked directly at Therese. She was tall and fair, her long figure graceful in the loose fur coat that she held open with a hand on her waist. Her eyes were grey, colourless, yet dominant as light or fire, and, caught by them, Therese could not look away.”

Carol and Therese meet in the department store and fall in love right away. Highsmith extends this brief moment through imagery to mimic the emotional weight of falling in love at first sight. She provides a detailed portrait of Carol here, from the specifics of her eye color to the general nature of her “fair” and “graceful” look.

“And what did the facts matter after all? […] Because she was happy now, starting today. She had no need of parents or background.”

Enraptured in Carol, Therese’s entire worldview shifts; who she was no longer exists as she only lives for Carol. This quotation represents the danger of obsession as opposed to love, as Therese’s intense fixation on Carol allows her to exist in an alternate reality.

“What a strange girl you are […] Flung out of space.”

Carol’s view of Therese suggests Therese, like her, defies conventional labels. She uses a metaphor here, “[f]lung out of space,” to describe Therese’s unusual nature. This phrase is an allusion to the poem “From Fifth Avenue Up” by Djuna Barnes, a queer modernist writer (“For though one took you, hurled you / Out of space, / With your legs half strangled / In your lace”), linking The Price of Salt to the New York lesbian literary canon. The phrase has also become famous in the lesbian community, particularly since the film release of Carol in 2015. It is the title for Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer’s graphic novel Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith.

“It was painful enough to make her weep, and Richard had been very apologetic and had said she made him feel like a brute.”

Highsmith juxtaposes Therese’s sexual experiences with Richard and with Carol. While sex with Richard hurts and makes her cry, sex with Carol is sublime. Richard is also characterized here as someone who cares chiefly about himself, prioritizing his own feelings of feeling “like a brute” over Therese’s pain.

“Disappeared! I like that. And how lucky you are to be able to do it. You're free. Do you realize that?”

Carol and Therese continue to reject labels and legibility. Disappearing turns into a privilege, allowing Therese to escape society’s confining categories and judgments.

“Is there a word? A friend, a companion, or maybe just a sharer. What good are words? I mean, I think people often try to find through sex things that are much easier to find in other ways.”

Carol’s thoughts on sex link to the theme of Love, Obsession, and Learning to Let Go. People must be aware of what they’re using other people for and whether they want sex or something else. Carol’s use of hypothetical questions reflects this inner interrogation.

“It's only a kite! I can make another kite!”

The kite links to the theme of Love, Obsession, and Learning to Let Go. Richard uses the kite and lets go of it, certain that he can recreate the experience. Letting the kite go isn’t a real loss. By contrast, he can’t seem to let go of Therese, even though she clearly states she doesn’t love him.

“‘Are you a painter, too?’

‘No. I'm nothing.’”

Carol’s reply to Richard’s question advances her dislike of labels. To be nothing is praiseworthy—it’s mysterious and tantalizing. The language “No. I’m nothing” evokes Emily Dickinson’s poem, “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” (1891), which also champions the virtues of illegibility. Like the allusion to Barnes above, this allusion to Dickinson, who had a lifelong romantic relationship with a woman and included many queer motifs and themes in her work, connects The Price of Salt to the lesbian literary canon.

“I thought of all the people who are afraid and hoard things, and themselves, and I thought, when everybody in the world comes to realize what I felt going up the hill, then there'll be a kind of right economy of living and of using and using up.”

Dannie’s ideas of Love, Obsession, and Learning to Let Go. adds a new dimension to the theme. People shouldn’t exploit one another, but they should share themselves and not restrict their feelings to one person.

“They're not horrid. One's just supposed to conform. I know what they'd like, they'd like a blank they could fill in. A person already filled in disturbs them terribly.”

Carol doesn’t conform to the norms of Harge and his family, which makes her adversarial. Yet Carol doesn’t villainize her in-laws, asserting that it’s common for people to want others to abide by their beliefs and norms. At the same time, this quote illuminates expectations for women in the 1950s—wives are supposed to be “blank” and take on their husbands’ identities and customs. Carol is an independent woman who breaks the mold. This statement also foreshadows why Carol loses Rindy—as the type of woman who defies social expectations, she is not seen as a good mother.

“He resented the fact that she wasn't and never could be what he wished her to be, a girl who loved him passionately and would love to go to Europe with him.”

Similar to Carol’s quote above, Richard is looking for his “blank,” the girl who will fit the script and behave the way he wants her to. Therese is not “blank,” so Richard can’t use her in this way, yet he can’t let go of her. He continues to futilely believe that she’ll change into a person he can use.

“People talk of classics. These lines are classic. A hundred different people will say the same words. There are lines for the mother, lines for the daughter, for the husband and the lover. I'd rather see you dead at my feet.”

The text’s extended metaphor about playing roles is deepened here when Carol compares living to acting in a play. In classic plays, different people utter the same lines—there’s not much individuality or meaning. Meaning comes from doing, not talking, so Carol would rather have a physical reaction from Therese, even if it’s deadly.

“She thought suddenly of the people working in Frankenberg's, penned in there at a quarter to ten in the morning, this morning and tomorrow morning and the next, the hands of clocks controlling every move they made. But the hands of the clock on the dashboard meant nothing now to her and Carol. They would sleep or not sleep, drive or not drive, whenever it pleased them.”

Therese juxtaposes the atomized and alienated workers at Frankenberg’s and her liberating cross-country car trip with Carol. Her love for Carol helps her escape the oppressive store and brings her freedom, represented by a feeling of timelessness.

“Then Carol slipped her arm under her neck, and all the length of their bodies touched, fitting as if something had prearranged it. Happiness was like a green vine spreading through her, stretching fine tendrils, bearing flowers through her flesh.”

The sex scene between Carol and Therese doesn’t feature explicit language or imagery. Instead, Highsmith uses a simile to describe Therese’s bliss, comparing it to a growing vine. Sex is transformative—a product of nature and fate—and this natural imagery counters the era’s anti-LGBTQ+ bias. Here, queerness is not abnormal; it is organic and beautiful.

“[S]he did not have to ask if this was right, no one had to tell her, because this could not have been more right or perfect.”

The quote alludes to Therese’s unpleasurable sex with Richard, where she had to ask if it was “right.” With Carol, Therese doesn’t need words—the harmony of their bodies tells her it’s “right.” This reinforces the assertion from the previous quote—that lesbian love and sex are natural and beautiful.

“She thought of people she had seen holding hands in movies, and why shouldn't she and Carol? Yet when she simply took Carol's arm as they stood choosing a box of candy in a shop, Carol murmured, ‘Don't.'”

In contrast to the deep feeling of rightness during the sex scene, this quote emphasizes that anti-lesbian bias dominates the public sphere. Therese doesn’t care what people think and tries to embrace Carol in public, but Carol brings Therese back to reality and rejects her gesture. The world they live in is intolerant of lesbian relationships, and Carol’s nervousness is prudent; they are already being followed.

“I wonder if they had time for a dictaphone in Chicago. It's the only place we stayed more than ten hours. I rather hope they did.”

Carol vacillates between valiant behavior and worry. Here, she’s in a devil-may-care mood, hoping the detective recorded them in Chicago. Carol switches to worry at other times, reflecting the fraught nature of their predicament and how much is on the line for Carol.

“She was as afraid sometimes as if she were walking about with a broken spine. If she ever had an impulse to tell Carol, the words dissolved before she began.”

The motif of labels arrests Therese and prevents her from communicating with Carol. She wants to speak with Carol about her fears and what’s happening, but she can’t locate the precise terms. Highsmith expresses this feeling through a simile, comparing it to walking with a broken back, an impossible task.

“‘My child is my property!’ […]

‘A human being is not property, Mrs. Aird.’”

The detective is correct that people cannot be property, and Carol does use dehumanizing language to refer to custody over her daughter, comparing her to an object. However, his statement, “A human being is not property, Mrs. Aird,” is ironic. He is following Carol across the country precisely because Harge feels that as his wife, she belongs to him. Even though she and Harge are divorcing, he refers to her as “Mrs. Aird” rather than Carol, affirming that she is subordinate to him and essentially his property.

“DON'T TELEPHONE FOR A WHILE.   EXPLAIN LATER.     ALL MY LOVE, DARLING.   CAROL.”

Therese is about to call Carol when she receives the telegram from her. This adds suspense to the already tense situation. In the book, Highsmith often uses epistolary elements like telegrams and letters, conveying the narrative through diverse mediums and adding different voices to the text.

“The rapport between two men or two women can be absolute and perfect, as it can never be between man and woman.”

Without using precise labels (gay, lesbian, and straight), Carol collapses the distinctions between different sexualities. Any two people can have a sublime “rapport,” and society shouldn’t get in the way of such an “absolute and perfect” bond.

“‘But the end was a fiasco.’

‘Yes. I mean I'd go through the end, too.’”

A consequence of love is pain, and Therese’s dialogue with Dannie acknowledges that love comes with suffering. Therese would go through the heartbreaking end again because she loves Carol deeply, and upset is a part of love. At the same time, “end” is a red herring because Carol and Therese’s relationship isn’t over.