Stone Mattress

Sight, or the lack thereof, is a motif throughout the book. In “Alphinland,” Atwood writes, “The beauty is an illusion, and also a warning: there’s a dark side to beauty, as with poisonous butterflies” (1). Without being able to see the beauty, it would be impossible for people to see the ugly. Without seeing the ugly, people cannot appreciate the good and beautiful.

Mirrors are often a symbol of the sight motif. At first, the narrator of “Lusus Naturae” avoids mirrors. Later, as she grows bolder, she looks in a mirror but knows she does not see what other people see when they look at her:

Inside our house, I tried a mirror. They say dead people can’t see their own reflections, and it was true; I could not see myself. I saw something, but that something was not myself: it looked nothing like the kind and pretty girl I knew myself to be, at heart (122).

Verna, the main character in “Stone Mattress,” looks into the mirror before she goes in for her “kill”; she also quotes Tennyson: “Though much is taken, much remains” (218). She then says that her third husband loved Tennyson, letting the reader know that Verna has been married more than once and giving the reader the opportunity to wonder what happened to Verna’s first two husbands.