The Bridge Symbol Analysis

As a child, Elaine has to walk to school past a ravine with a wooden bridge over it—which becomes a complex symbol of transition, uncertainty, and imagination. There are rumors of dangerous men who lurk to attack young women in that ravine, so Elaine and her friends aren’t supposed to ever stray from the bridge. The bridge, then, represents hidden dangers and the perverse ways that some people use public spaces in order to make targets—it is a space of vulnerability, uncertainty, and darkness. It’s also a space that marks the divide between the sexes: men wander freely, making young women unsafe.

The bridge also becomes the subject of several mysteries. First, Elaine’s brother Stephen buries his collection of marbles somewhere out by the bridge. Later, Cordelia tries to convince Elaine, Carol, and Grace that dead people populate the water beneath it because the river runs from a cemetery. After that, she throws Elaine’s hat down into the “ravine where the bad men are” in winter and forces her to fetch it, which leads Elaine to nearly freeze to death until she thinks she sees an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Even when these mysteries are debunked, they captivate Elaine’s imagination. Her own mother collects plants down by the ravine, and Elaine knows the Virgin Mary apparition was just wishful thinking; no one came to help her. This shows the ambivalence of the bridge space—it takes on at once the darkest and most hopeful rumors, some of which prove true—a young woman is killed by the river during Elaine’s high school years—and others of which fade away.

Bridges also represent duality and transition—they link a starting point and an end point, creating a sense of uncertainty and ambivalence. When one stands on the bridge, one is no longer on solid ground. This is especially evident in Elaine’s painting Falling Women, which depicts three women falling off the bridge. This work further underscores that not only do bridges stretch between two horizontal points, but they also mark the dimension between the high and the low—and call into question what might be lurking underneath a simple surface. Elaine again works the bridge into her painting Unified Field Theory, this time with a galaxy of marbles buried underneath it. The bridge exists as a space of intense romantic imagination as well as deep fear.

The wooden bridge of Elaine’s youth eventually gets torn down, and Elaine watches it with “an uneasy feeling, as if something’s buried down there, a nameless, crucial thing” or as though there were “someone still on the bridge, left by mistake, up in the air…” Years later, she walks across the concrete bridge that has replaced it and thinks, “Nevertheless it’s the same bridge.” As a symbol, it does not matter if years pass or the bridge changes in form—it stands regardless for a period of suspension between two extremes, the potential fear of falling, and the uncertainty about whether danger or beauty lurks beneath the surface.