Arnow skillfully organizes Gertie's story around a major symbol, the large block of cherry-wood which she carves during moments of intense emotion and which provides her with an outlet for self-expression. Indeed, the evolution of Gertie's ideas about what to create from this piece of wood and the uses she makes of it during the novel reflect her whole history. At first, she wants to sculpt the wood into the figure of the laughing Christ that symbolically characterizes her initially positive approach to life, but after she has begun to feel that by coming to Detroit she has betrayed her children and herself, she decides that the wood should be carved into the figure of a repentant Judas. At the same time, as the force of her creative spirit weakens under the burdens of her everyday life, her mastery over the fate of the wood diminishes until she...