The Mock Wedding Bouquet

The mock wedding as a whole, but especially the bouquet of flowers, symbolizes the degeneration of Fern and Edgar’s marriage. Culturally, flowers are frequently a romantic gift, and can be associated with courtship, deep love, or reconciliation. Although Edgar clearly intends the flowers as a gift along these accepted lines, Fern uses them as a component of her bride costume in a mock wedding meant to cheer the elderly “forgetters” at a community center. During the bouquet toss, Fern finally confronts the issue of her own marriage head-on by mentally rearranging the flowers: “She imagined the flowers in her dining room, in her car, in her trash and found no surface on which they made sense” (104). Fern throws the flowers and abandons the expectations of her home and family.

The Blue Dress

Fern’s blue dress symbolizes hope and young love. She...