Rock Paper Scissors

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-15

Chapters 16-30

Chapters 31-45

Chapters 46-61

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Animals and Objects

Feeney populates the novel with references to many different animals, some living and present, others simply objects made to look like animals. The proliferation of these animals suggests that an author like Feeney, who creates narratives in painstaking detail, intends for these real and faux creatures to hold some meaning. Given where they appear in the narrative and how the characters relate to them, their symbolic purposes are implicit.

Bob, the aging black Labrador retriever, apparently kidnapped early on, symbolizes the affection between wife and husband in Adam’s life. Adam, having pretended to be unwilling to adopt Bob, uses his collar to ask Robin to marry him. When Amelia steals Adam, she gets the affectionate dog as well. Robin secretly takes him back at Blackwater, symbolizing her intention to recapture Adam and their relationship. Robin inherits Oscar, the rabbit, when Henry dies, symbolizing fecund creativity passing from father to daughter. When Amelia and Adam arrive at Blackwater—lost and leaderless—they’re met by a flock of sheep that later peer in the windows at the confused couple, symbolizing their wandering uncertainty. Robin’s origami crane, kept by Adam in his billfold long after their divorce, symbolizes purity and longevity. Amelia tries to burn it in the fireplace, only to have Adam rescue it, which foreshadows the restoration of his relationship with Robin.

In addition to other symbolic animal totems—such as the carved robins in Henry’s bedroom or the menagerie of carved creatures outside the chapel, or the stork that symbolizes a bright future—are symbolic objects, including the pair of scissors—the final implement in the game rock, paper, scissors. Handed down to Robin from her mother, this pair of scissors is apparently the weapon that Robin uses to kill Amelia.

The Pervasive Color Red

A close reading of the novel reveals that Feeney scarcely mentions color in descriptive passages. The constant exception to the author’s apparent color blindness is red. Feeney uses red as a motif to emphasize certain people and objects throughout the narrative to highlight them, as if saying, “Pay attention to this.” Most red items relate to Adam’s backstory, referring to some instance in his life that other people relate to as well.

The most important red object is the red kimono. Adam’s mother wore it every night that a lover spent with her, and she was wearing it when she was struck by a car and killed. All his life, Adam has had nightmares in which he sees his lifeless mother, wearing the red kimono. The night that Amelia barges into Adam’s life, she wears a red dress. Robin, looking at herself in a mirror as she plots to regain Adam, applies red lipstick from an old tube. When Amelia and Adam walk to Robin’s cottage, fruitlessly trying to get her attention, they knock on her red door. Atop the hill overlooking Blackwater Loch, Adam sees a woman in a red kimono—Robin—enter the distant chapel. Red is the color of alarm, and Feeney uses it as a motif to signal significant elements in the narrative.

Prosopagnosia and Other Kinds of “Blindness”

As Feeney describes Adam’s prosopagnosia, face blindness, she points out the difficulties and limitations that this condition brings about. Face blindness, however, isn’t the only form of “blindness” that afflicts Adam. His immature treatment of both his wives, his petulance, and his tendency to discount the significance of others’ opinions shows that he’s empathetically oblivious. His inability to see faces, Feeney implies, is really an inability to see the real person behind the face.

As Feeney develops the characters, it becomes clear that each of them is inattentive in some respect. Amelia can’t see love. As a rootless survivor, she feigns affection and charms others but, by her own admission, was never taught to love. Robin can’t see trouble. On two occasions—both on her wedding anniversary—she accepts at face value the overtures of beautiful suitors for Adam’s affection. Because she’s a person of virtue, she’s oblivious to the notion that childlike Adam can easily be seduced. Henry can’t see the ability of others. He scorns Robin’s writing, mocks Adam’s screenplays, and apparently terminated the writing career of Robin’s mother. Feeney illustrates various types of “blindness” through a story in which every character is in some way inattentive. The worst part of this reality is that no one realizes their inattentiveness—Adam is only aware of his medical blindness.