Still Life

In Chapter 1, Winman introduces her larger messages about The Pursuit of Love, happiness, and art. The setting of World War II makes these messages all the more important, as the characters are searching for antidotes to suffering and violence. Every character in this chapter is impacted by the war in some profound way, which connects them across geographical locations and unique experiences.

Winman’s initial setting of the Tuscan countryside in the later days of the war sets up the theme of The Coexistence of Beauty and Ugliness. The Italian countryside is visually beautiful, but it is marred by the shots of war and the death and destruction war has wrought on the land and the people. This juxtaposition is important because it highlights society’s tendency to destroy what is naturally beautiful in the world. Conversely, it also emphasizes hope because where there is beauty, there can be peace and refuge. This juxtaposition is highlighted when Darnley shows Evelyn Pontormo’s Deposition from the Cross; this priceless piece of art is surrounded by the destruction and dirt of the war. The image demonstrates that beauty can be found even in the most tragic of settings.

Evelyn is a champion of art and takes the threat of artworks’ destruction very seriously. As an art historian, she knows that art’s value goes beyond its beauty; it is an extension of the human experience. Art highlights our deepest selves because it poses as a mirror to human experience. This is symbolized through Pontormo’s Deposition from the Cross because the depiction of Jesus’s body being brought to his grieving mother echoes the reality of World War II, in which many mothers reunited with their sons only when their sons returned to them in caskets. Art also has the ability to move the human soul, the beauty and inspiration of which can combat the traumas and ugliness of war. In war, people can become the worst versions of themselves, but in art, these same people can find redemption in their capacity to create, observe, and honor human life.

Winman also uses names to tell her story. This is most evident in the protagonist Ulysses, whose name has a time-honored tradition of heroism. Ulysses, a Latinized form of Odysseus, is the great Ancient Greek hero of Homer’s epic poems The Odyssey and The Iliad. In the novel, Ulysses tries to live up name by acting heroically. He fights the war he is forced to fight, but he also demonstrates kindness and empathy: He saves the life of Arturo, an enemy soldier, even though he doesn’t have to. His namesake, Odysseus, is the original hero of the Hero’s Journey, a literary trope defined by folklorist Joseph Campbell in which the protagonist leaves home and undergoes a journey of growth and challenges in order to return home transformed. That Ulysses is an allusion to The Odyssey, in which Odysseus does indeed return home after many years away, implies that Ulysses will survive the war and find his way back to England.

Another parallel between Still Life and The Odyssey is that when Odysseus returns home to Ithaca, he is enraged to discover that several suitors have been trying to court his wife Penelope in his absence. In the novel, Ulysses has a wife named Peggy, who dates other men while Ulysses is away. In The Odyssey, Odysseus has no way of reaching his wife, so she is forced to wait for him for years holding on to hope that he is still alive; in Still Life, Ulysses and Peggy make the perhaps puzzling decision not to communicate while Ulysses is away at war. This develops emotional distance as well as geographical distance, which threatens their marriage.

Though Peggy is not fighting on the front lines like Ulysses, she is nonetheless a victim of the war. She is forced to work in a pub, which is a dangerous environment because men constantly harass her. In London, there are constant threats of air raids and a major shortage of food. Peggy is not in occupied territory, but the war has made her home unsafe. She dates an American soldier despite feeling degraded by him because she wants to leave England and the war behind her. The prospect of moving to America symbolizes a new start for Peggy, but when Eddie disappears, her hopes evaporate.

An important slogan in Chapter 1 is “Against All Odds.” It’s a slogan that Ulysses holds dear because he has survived so much. Against all odds, he has lived through several attacks on his body, and he has survived witnessing the deaths of many of his comrades and friends. Survival is not the only odds that are beaten in Chapter 1. Though war tears lives apart, people can still find happiness. Evelyn and Margaret demonstrate this through their friendship and through Margaret’s photographs, which capture small but beautiful moments of joy. The friendship between Darnley and Ulysses also highlights the message that even when the world is at its darkest, there is still space for friendship and love.

Another important message in Chapter 1 is the universality of art. Art is the universal language; soldiers in this war come from different countries, cultures, and linguistic heritages, but they can all interpret art and be moved by it in the same way. Art therefore humanizes the individual, which is of crucial importance in a war, in which humans are consistently dehumanized.

In Chapter 2, Winman explores the aftermath of major wars. Ulysses returns home to London, a changed man to a changed home. Every hope he had relied on to see him through the war ends up distorted: His father’s business, which he was to inherit, has been destroyed, and Peggy has had a child by another man. Transitions to and out of war are traumatic for Ulysses, who nonetheless maintains his characteristic kindness and patience. Through becoming a father figure to Alys, Ulysses finds hope for the future.

Winman also uses Claude the parrot as a symbol in Chapter 2. Like the birds symbolized in Chapter 1, Claude the parrot has the ability to fly away, so he is free, as opposed to the people, who are stuck where they are. When Claude flies away, it is right around the time that the dubious Tubby makes an alliance with Col. This implies that Claude intuits the danger that Tubby would bring to Col. When Claude returns, it’s a symbolic triumph that represents breaking ties with Tubby. Claude is an intelligent bird, and he also demonstrates that one doesn’t have to stay in a bad or destructive environment, which foreshadows Ulysses’s move to Italy.