The Old Wives' Tale

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1908

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 1, Chapters 1-3

Book 1, Chapters 4-7

Book 2, Chapters 1-4

Book 2, Chapters 5-8

Book 3, Chapters 1-4

Book 3, Chapters 5-7

Book 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Signs

Signs are one of the most common symbols of change in The Old Wives’ Tale, particularly the signs (or lack thereof) that hang outside the Baines family business. In Book 1, no sign hangs outside the draper’s shop because John Baines decided not to replace the old signboard when a storm blew it down. The community took this as a mark of humility that raised the estimation of his virtue, so it became a prized mark of the Baines family culture not to have a sign on their shop.

This changes when Mrs. Baines resigns and the shop passes into Samuel and Constance’s hands. Samuel’s decides to hang a sign outside the shop, a decision that troubles Constance, who still values the virtue of her Baines family traditions. The sign represents a major turning point in Constance’s life, from youth to adulthood.

The sign changes again after Samuel’s death, when the business is sold to Mr. Critchlow, signifying yet another major change in Constance’s life. The sign changes for a final time in Book 4, when the building is sold to a premade clothing company just before Constance’s death, symbolizing another change in Constance’s life, in the story of the building and its businesses, and in the nature of Bursley itself.

Family Relations

Family relations are a major motif throughout the book. Bennett’s overriding theme is an examination of the changes of life, and he chooses to use the motif of family relations as one of the main windows through which to view those changes. Rather than setting his story in the context of a dramatic adventure or a quest, he focuses on a modest family that experiences changes in the context of the circumstances they share together. Family relations are a source of both strength and tension throughout the story, as the girls inherit their parents’ familial culture but also react against it in various ways.

Constance and Sophia’s relationship with their husbands form the first major arc of each of their adulthood narratives, and their relationship with each other forms the binding structure of Books 1 and 4. For Constance, the motif of family relations continues even after her husband’s death, as she seeks to retain ties of intimacy with her son, Cyril. For Sophia, however, the motif of family relations fades to the background after her husband’s departure, replaced by the other side of the Baines’s main concern in life—business. Even for Sophia, though, family relations drive her story in the end, as she resumes life with her sister and even experiences a reunion of sorts with the memory of her husband just before her own passing.

Elephants

Elephants constitute a minor symbol in the book in terms of the frequency with which they’re mentioned, but the symbolic value of their appearance is important. They’re one of the literary devices by which Bennett ties Sophia’s story together. The symbol first appears in the narrative when a traveling carnival comes to Bursley and an elephant that has gone rogue must be shot. The residents, including Mrs. Baines and Constance, go out to see the dead elephant, which forms the basis of the sequence in which Sophia is left alone tending her father. She leaves for a few minutes to go downstairs and greet Gerald in the shop, and as a result, her father dies. Not only does the elephant’s death foreshadow that of the family’s patriarch, but the dead elephant symbolizes the circumstances that will eventually drive Sophia away from her family and out of Bursley, into the Gerald’s arms.

The other symbolic appearance of an elephant is upon Sophia’s return from Paris to Bursley many years later. As she and Constance ride into Bursley, Sophia spots an elephant standing in a circus yard. Whereas a dead elephant presaged Sophia’s departure from Bursley, a live elephant now signifies her return and ties that part of her story arc together.