There is great symbolic weight in the fact that Alicia commits violence with a paintbrush. In addition to being a vehicle of communication, Alicia’s art is also a way she expresses her rage—punishing Lydia, her mother, and Gabriel with her disdainful portraits. Is the
Alcestis, then, a kind of self-harm, in which she attacks herself the same way she goes after Elif or Lydia or her other subjects?