Water Symbol Analysis

Cather uses water to symbolize the renewal of dormant life, especially the revival of Georgiana’s soul. Not incidentally, Cather frequently associates water with music, further underscoring the latter as a source of meaning for Georgiana. During the concert, for instance, the violin bows “drove obliquely downward, like the pelting streaks of rain in a summer shower,” as Clark wonders whether his aunt is receptive to the power of such music after so many years removed from the cultural scene. Soon after, he first notices tears on Georgiana’s cheeks and reflects on the resilience of the suffering soul, which, like moss, “can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and yet, if placed in water, grows green again.” Georgiana’s soul appeared to have lain almost lifeless for lack of access to music, but as soon as it is immersed in a cultured environment once again, it responds immediately with heartfelt emotion. Her weeping grows in volume and intensity throughout the concert, until it is like “a shallow vessel [that] overflows in a rainstorm”—the renewal of emotion evoked by the music is almost more than she can bear. Like her tears, the music is a “deluge of sound” that “poured on and on,” relentless but also potentially dangerous in its persistence. Clark does not know what Georgiana “found in the shining current of it” or “past what happy islands” it bore her—perhaps it led her past joyful memories of her earlier career—though he believes it carried her “into the grey, nameless burying grounds of the sea” where hopes and dreams sleep, and she, too, must finally put to rest the part of herself that has been awakened by the concert. Only after the music subsides does Georgiana burst into full tears, pleading that she doesn’t want to go back to the homestead. Thus, Cather’s association of water and music carries Georgiana from the concert’s ambiguous beginning to its cathartic end. While water symbolizes the bringing to life of Georgiana’s soul, it also has an overwhelming, potentially drowning effect, shown by the fact that she is overcome with sorrow over abandoned hopes.