White Angel

The grandfather clock appears several times and illustrates several things. First, the clock dramatizes the father’s attempt to leave something behind for his sons—an attempt crushed when Carlton dies before he does. Here already the clock undergirds a motif of futility (a quality the father also embodies), but it’s also a figure for time itself and the human desire to measure and control it; this desire for control, too, is futile.

The clock is first mentioned when Bobby hears the sound of his father’s tinkering carrying up from the basement. The clock is, notably, a grandfather clock, so it is long and rectangular like a coffin—a “long wooden box” (3), and later descriptions are similar. Of course, the reader knows Carlton will soon die, as Bobby reveals this at the beginning of the story. The clock is therefore linked to Carlton’s diminishing time on earth. At one point standing close to his brother, Bobby thinks, “I can feel Carlton’s heart ticking” (4). Later, when the family has fragmented under the weight of their grief, Bobby finds his father in the hallway wandering in his pajamas near the clock: “The grandfather clock chimes the quarter hour” (15). He puts his father to bed and listens as his father’s bedside clock “ticks off the minutes” (14). This new, bedside ticking represents how time feels heavier in grief, when you are only living automatically, minute-by-minute, rather than with purpose. Time keeps moving on for the characters, even when their world stops.

This motif of flight occurs in many forms. At several points, certain characters are compared to birds. When Bobby runs from the cemetery after seeing Carlton and his girlfriend, he says, “[M]y heart beats fast as a sparrow’s” (5), and later, “[M]y heart works itself up into a hummingbird’s rate” (6). At the party, he compares his dancing father to a “flightless bird”; metaphorically, flight is easier for young people. Carlton and Bobby discover this when they are high on acid and believe they are flying. When Carlton says they’re about to “fly,” Bobby is fully credulous—and he insists that this very credulity is the secret to flight. Later at the party, Bobby is tipsy on the couch and “dreaming of flight” (11) when his mother wakes him and makes him go to bed.

Planes appear several times and have diverse symbolism. They represent escape and ascendency, but also death and disaster. Near the beginning of the story, Bobby remembers that a family of four were killed when a single-engine plane fell out of the sky, and he recalls the family again after his and Carlton’s psychedelic “flight.” His mother’s first husband was killed in a plane crash, and after Carlton dies, planes become symbols of escape: “[A]bove us, airplanes and satellites sparkle. People are flying even now toward New York or California” (14). Notably, Carlton’s friend Frank claims to have seen a UFO in the sky outside, and this is why everyone rushes into the garden. This event ultimately leads to Carlton’s death. Flight is metaphorical and represents transcendence, escape, optimism, risk, and death.

Woodstock (and Yasgur’s Farm, the site of the festival), which is mentioned several times, symbolizes the 1960s counterculture that Carlton and Bobby want to join. The festival brought together some of the biggest music acts of that era for what was advertised as “Three days of Peace and Music.” It was an optimistic event and a cornerstone of the counterculture in many ways, and this spirit—bringing people together over music—inspires Carlton to bring his friends to his parents’ party (Bobby calls his decision a “Woodstock move”). Woodstock represents the idealistic underpinning of Carlton’s risk-seeking. He yearns for revolution, liberation, and experimentation—whether through drugs, sex, or music—and he takes Bobby along for the ride.