Car

Amanda and Clay's car is a symbol of their middle-class social status, a quality of their lives that is significant to the couple, as they frequently compare themselves to the Washingtons, who are wealthier. (By ordinary measures, Clay and Amanda are almost certainly upper-middle-class, as he is a professor and she is an advertising executive, but cost of living expenses are very high in New York City.) The car is described in Chapter 1 as though it is an extension of the family itself: "Their gray car was a bell jar, a microclimate: air conditioning, the funk of adolescence (sweat, feet, sebum), Amanda's French shampoo, the rustle of debris" (1). The narrator then notes, "The car was not so new as to be luxurious nor so old as to be bohemian. A middle-class thing for middle-class people" (2).

Deer

Deer appear multiple times in the novel and serve as...