In The Goldfinch, author Donna Tartt employs art as the key link between characters, transcending both time and space. Throughout the novel, characters are linked to one another through their connections to the titular artwork. After the death of his mother Audrey, Theo imprints onto the painting of The Goldfinch and becomes obsessed with keeping the piece protected. The immortality of art—which stands in stark opposition to the impermanence of human life—is demonstrated through Theo’s relationship to the painting, which comes to him in the immediate aftermath of Audrey’s death. However, while Theo reflects on this immortality, he does not fully acknowledge the importance of human connection to artwork.
In Toby Foshay’s Wyndham Lewis and the…show more content… The painting of The Goldfinch is an immutable object that retains its integrity, even as Theo’s life, and the lives of others who have come before and after him, come and go. For Audrey, the painting of The Goldfinch has significant meaning in that it was “just about the first painting [she] ever really loved” (Tartt 26). In fact, Theo immediately forms an emotional connection between the painting and his mother. The finch in the painting reminds Theo of his mother “when she was small: a dark-capped finch with steady eyes” (Tartt 27). Evoking this emotional comparison between his mother and the painting, as something small—fragile even—is significant. Audrey is killed less than four pages later, and Theo seeks out the painting after the explosion, pulling the piece from the wreckage. To Theo, both his mother and the painting are things that need to be protected. Later, while looking at the painting he states: “almost immediately its glow enveloped me… the way your heart beat slow and sure when you were with a person you felt safe with and loved” (Tartt 317). Here, the painting becomes personified and Tartt reinforces the connection between Theo’s mother and the artwork by employing emotional, lifelike language towards the
