The Brown Bowl Symbol Analysis

Francie admires the “little golden-brown pottery jug” filled with flowers that sits at the end of the librarian’s desk—a thing that the librarian hardly notices until Francie mentions it. The janitor—or “somebody”—has placed the bowl there and routinely fills it with flowers. The bowl is a “season indicator” that contains “a few sprigs of bittersweet” in the fall, holly at Christmas, pussy willow near spring, and nasturtiums in the summer. The flowers, in turn, symbolize Francie’s hopes for change and beauty, despite the constancy of her family’s circumstances, particularly the Nolans’ poverty and Johnny’s alcoholism. The bowl never changes, but the flowers do. Francie’s delight with the bowl of flowers suggests her ability to see beyond circumstances that do not change in favor of recognizing the occasional novelties that life can offer. This is reminiscent of Francie and Neeley’s ability to express gratitude for small pleasures, such as eating a banana with an oatmeal dinner.

Francie fantasizes about having her own home one day, in which she will have a desk like the librarian’s in her parlor, which will have white walls and many books. The brown bowl is the only decorative feature that Francie imagines in her future home, indicating a taste for beauty that reminds her of the natural world that eludes her in cluttered, urban Brooklyn. The librarian’s indifference to the bowl is also a reminder that what may be a relatively mundane object to one person can become something of immense significance to someone else. The brown bowl contains more hope for Francie than the entire city of New York, which she finds relatively disappointing. The bowl, on the other hand, always contains something fresh and beautiful; it alludes to the change and growth that Francie desires for herself and her family. Even when it seems as though her circumstances will not change, Francie can look to the bowl as an indicator of life’s cycles as well as its potential for novelty.