45 pages • 1 hour read
City of Girls
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Symbols & Motifs
New York
The city of New York represents a number of different things to Vivian. Its atmosphere is lively and energetic, which is the opposite of the stultifying home environment she endured during her early years. Vivian’s banishment to the big city sets her free. No one in the city judges her harshly for her attitudes or her actions. She can slip around the city at night without her movements being reported back to her parents by small-town gossips. Of course, this heady sense of freedom results in a near catastrophe when a big city gossip columnist learns about one of her escapades.
Vivian holds a special place in her heart for the city as it was in 1940. It represents the pinnacle of the glamour and excitement available to her during her first year there. Over time, the city itself changes as does Vivian’s relationship to it. During the war years, she calls it coarse. In the post-war building boom, it becomes hungry to devour old neighborhoods like the one where the Lily Theater stood.
After Vivian’s banishment and subsequent return, she begins to explore the city on bicycle, learning its various neighborhoods by heart. Vivian’s relationship with Frank is closely tied to the city itself. Because of Frank’s restlessness, the couple goes on long walks from one end of New York to the other. They later expand their range as they explore the surrounding boroughs by car. Vivian’s emotional tie to New York is every bit as strong as her tie to the people she loves there.
Sex and Intimacy
After Vivian comically loses her virginity to a pedantic veterinarian, she discovers she likes sex. Her nightly excursions with Celia offer a large number of opportunities to indulge herself. However, it isn’t until her affair with Anthony that she realizes just how important sex will be to her. Anthony’s uninhibited lovemaking teaches Vivian “what’s what” (189), and she’s never the same afterward.
In 1940, Vivian liberates herself from the sexual constraints of her generation and actively seeks pleasure. Her disastrous ménage à trois with Celia and Arthur temporarily dampens her appetite, but it returns full force once she comes back to New York. Vivian doesn’t equate sex with intimacy. In fact, she draws a clear distinction between the two when she tells Angela, “Sex is so often a cheat—a shortcut of intimacy. A way to skip over knowing somebody’s heart by knowing, instead, their mere body” (435). Ironically, the most intimate relationship of Vivian’s life is the one she shares with Frank, who cannot tolerate the touch of another human being.
The reader may be puzzled by Vivian’s pursuit of sex when she so clearly isn’t seeking intimacy from these encounters. Rather she seems to be attempting to awaken some primal part of her being by indulging her appetite. When Frank asks her if sex makes her happy, she says it keeps her satisfied. As she explains to Angela, “This hidden part of me could only be reached through sexual intercourse. And when a man went to that darkest, secret place within me, I felt as though I had landed in the very beginning of myself” (429-30). Vivian equates primal sex with being true to herself, even though most of the generation into which she is born would never understand the connection.
Sewing
Vivian is not a seamstress who merely sews on buttons and patches worn clothing. She is a natural-born couturier. Her parents are incapable of recognizing her talent, but her grandmother hones her innate ability until it becomes a skill that will serve her throughout her life.
While designing clothing interests her, Vivian is in her element when she begins creating costumes. Edna is the first to enlighten her to the distinction between dress and costumes when she says:
The difference between making a dress and making a costume, of course, is that dresses are sewn, but costumes are built. Many people these days can sew, but not many know how to build. A costume is a prop for the stage, Vivvie, as much as any piece of furniture, and it needs to be strong. (127)
Not only does Vivian understand the distinction between sewing and costumery, she has a sharp eye for the potential of various fabrics. Her ability to go to a rag shop for raw materials and produce a stunning finished product speaks to her formidable genius for this type of work.
Once her career as a costume designer ends, Vivian is able to take this same skill and apply it to vintage bridal gowns. She sees that such dresses are also costumes to be worn in a type of performance; they, too, must be built rather than sewn. Vivian is able to take discarded scraps and turn them into works of art because she can see potential where others only see limitations.
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By Elizabeth Gilbert
