The Pink Room Symbol Analysis

The pink room symbolizes Miyax’s idealized perception of non-indigenous American culture. After Miyax (who is Inuit) moves to Mekoryuk to attend school, she starts to exchange letters with Amy Pollack, a 12-year-old girl who lives in San Francisco. In her letters, Amy enchants Miyax with vivid descriptions of city life in San Francisco. At the end of each letter, Amy begs Miyax to come stay with her, promising that Miyax will have a pink room all to herself when she arrives. Miyax imagines running away to San Francisco and staying in the pink room in Amy’s house to escape her own life, which becomes even more unbearable after she relocates to Barrow to marry an abusive boy named Daniel. Although Miyax once rejected assimilating into non-indigenous society, she now sees the promised pink room as a symbol of the better life she could have in the more modernized continental U.S. 

After Daniel assaults her, Miyax flees Barrow. She plans to board a ship at Point Hope that will take her to San Francisco, but the plan falls apart when she gets lost on the way there. At first, Miyax fantasizes about San Francisco and the pink room to remain hopeful as she struggles to survive the Arctic tundra’s harsh conditions. But her attitude changes after she witnesses two gussak (white) hunters shoot and murder her wolf friend, Amaroq, from an airplane. Miyax associates Amaroq’s cruel and senseless murder with gussak people’s immoral greed. After Amaroq’s death, Miyax can only envision the pink room in Amy’s house as “red with [Amaroq’s] blood.” Miyax’s altered vision of the pink room symbolizes her disillusionment with non-indigenous culture. Amaroq’s death makes her realize that she cannot remain loyal to her Inuit culture if she embraces fantasies of assimilating into mainstream American society. The pink room thus transforms from a symbol of possibility and hope to a reminder of how non-indigenous people have killed and degraded the people, values, and customs she holds dear.