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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Written on the Body, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Loss
Desire, Infidelity, and Love
The Body
Memory and Meaning
Summary
Analysis
The narrator thinks of Louise’s clavicle (her collar bone) like the clavier, the musical instrument that shares the same linguistic origin. They find the space between the bone and muscle where they can press their fingers. Even though when Louise wore low-cut clothing it meant to show off her breasts, the narrator was always drawn to her clavicle and wanted to push into her body as though to strangle her. What the narrator was really after was for their bones to fit into one another. Louise’s memory now lives on in the narrator’s body—which houses all the places Louise has also been.
This passage illustrates how memories are housed within the body, both because there are physical traces left on the body (as mentioned previously) and because the body is a vehicle for memory, conjuring associations with past events. When the narrator observes and touches their own body, they also recall times when Louise, too, was there. Thus, it is also through intimacy with their own body that the narrator maintains a virtual connection with Louise.
Themes
The scapula, or shoulder blade, is a flat triangular shaped bone along the backside of the rib cage. On Louise, the scapulas are like wings, and Louise is like the winged horse, Pegasus. The narrator imagines riding on her back, beholding the strength hidden in the muscles around the scapula. In their mind, they see how, when Louise sleeps with her back turned toward the narrator, the scapulas become like razors, signaling to Louise’s untold power.
In this passage, the narrator contemplates Louise’s scapula and is reminded of her power and strength. They also liken Louise to Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, an analogy that alludes to Louise’s godliness in the narrator’s eyes and her untamable nature.
Themes
Thirteen bones make up the face, in addition to the frontal bone. Visions of Louise’s face are the most persistent. In their imagination, the narrator singles out the part of Louise’s face that had once hit the ice of a pond. And when they try to kiss her, Louise’s skin burns the narrator’s mouth. The narrator then sees themselves holding Louise, just as Death will hold her one day soon. In the vision, Louise quickly melts away. The narrator wants to forget, calls on the scientific names of all the bones of the face to serve as a barrier against the memory of Louise’s face.
This passage illustrates that visions of Louise’s face are the most painful, and the ones that the narrator most wants to avoid. Although in previous passage the narrator cultivates a deep knowledge of anatomy in order to conjure cherished memories of Louise, in this passage the narrator uses the objectivity and dispassion of anatomical study to maintain a distance from them. In this instance, the mind and body are at odds with one another, and the body holds on to the past that the mind wishes to forget.
Themes
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