To Paradise

“Was he not also something the house had, if not spawned, then nourished and fed? If he left Washington Square, how would he ever know where he truly was in the world?”

David Bingham is ambivalent toward the mansion in Washington Square, which symbolizes his ambivalence toward his family legacy. David’s language shows how closely he identifies with the house, seeing it as an extension of his self; his language also alternates between the grotesque (“spawned”) and the endearing (“nourished”). David personifies the house as a parental entity that he feels both supported and oppressed by, foreshadowing his central conflict of forming his own independent identity.

“He wondered if he was defective enough so that his grandfather was thinking of him and Charles as belonging on two sides of a ledger: His illnesses for Charles’s lack of refinement.”

David Bingham speculates about his grandfather’s investment in the match between him and Charles Griffith and fears that he is somehow shameful. David uses a metaphor of a ledger (a tool for recording business transactions) to reveal his sense that his grandfather sees his marriage as purely logical and pragmatic. David is not interested in the marriage to Charles because he associates it with a sense of unworthiness. 

“He was a bite of an apple, but Edward Bishop was that apple baked into a pie with a shattery, lardy crust pattered with sugar, and after a taste of that, there was no going back to the other.”

David compares himself unfavorably to Edward Bishop and reveals the first stirrings of his desire. David uses a metaphor comparing Edward to apple pie, using decadent and sensuous imagery to show his desire.