The Fire Symbol Analysis

The fire at the end of the story represents both Mary and the protagonist’s final ability to move on from their grief. By burning John’s letters after Mary dies so that the protagonist can use Mary’s room as a study, the protagonist’s mother erases the meaning they held for so many years. In doing so, she symbolically releases the Mary’s lifelong grief over her breakup with John. With Mary dead, the protagonist’s mother sees the letters only as more of Mary’s many papers, less “useful” than the rubber band that holds them together. While the protagonist watches the letters burn and remembers their meaning to Mary, he only remembers the passages he read; the rest of their contents is lost to the fire. The fire in this way symbolizes how Mary’s death releases her from the burden of her heartbreak. With the letters reduced to meaningless ash, Mary’s spirit might finally be free to move on from her grief.

The fire is similarly cleansing for the protagonist, who has also been haunted by grief, not only for Aunt Mary’s death, but also for breaking her trust when, as a young child, he read the letters behind her back after she told him not to. As she dies, he seems unable to process his grief immediately, “trembling with anger or sorrow, he didn’t know which.” He becomes an unemotional bystander, removing himself from her bedroom to wait alone for news of her death. In this way, his grief “freezes” his emotions. Only after watching John’s letters burn in the fire can the protagonist truly thaw these emotions, finally crying “for the first time since [Mary] had died.” Although the protagonist will never know whether Mary forgave him, his ability to mourn her death suggests that he has begun to learn how to forgive himself. The fire therefore provides the turning point in the protagonist’s path to forgiveness, symbolically clearing out space in Mary’s old bureau for his next stage in life.