Snow Symbol Analysis

Snow symbolizes purity and renewal in “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell,” but it is a purity and renewal that the characters are ultimately unable to fully grasp, and thus the symbol of snow only accentuates the characters’ loneliness and desolation. Brympton Place, the setting for “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell,” is a dreary place, afflicted with constant rain and bleak scenery—the ugly reality the snow promises to transform. When the rain finally stops and snow begins to fall, Hartley interprets it as a relief and a potential turning point in the house’s troubles: “It seemed to me as if the snow would cover up all the dreariness, indoors as well as out.” It is precisely at this point, however, that the ghost of Emma Saxon reappears to Hartley, suggesting that Hartley’s experience of dreariness is only beginning. Indeed, when Hartley follows Emma Saxon outside, she sees that Emma Saxon does not leave footprints in the snow, hinting that the renewal that the snow brings is not for these characters. Hartley is despondent at this sight: “Somehow it was worse here than indoors. She made the whole countryside seem lonely as the grave, with none but us two in it, and no help in the wide world.” Thus, far from rescuing Hartley from Brympton Place, snow has led her to the world of the dead. The story’s conclusion echoes this idea; Mrs. Brympton’s funeral, held in the middle of a snowstorm, only has humiliation and loneliness to offer those who attend it.