Polly’s fur stoles are a status symbol that become a motif of The Personal Cost of Ambition. At the start of the novel, the furs represent her hard-won success, her professional identity, and the armor she uses to navigate a hostile world. For Polly, who rose from penniless immigrant to New York’s most prominent madam, the stoles make her ambition visible and project an image of untouchable glamour. Their defensive function is explicit during her arrest, when she pulls her “fur stole tight around [her] shoulders like a shield” (20). In that vulnerable moment, the stole helps her hold her composure and sustain the persona of the unflappable Polly Adler even when she’s terrified. The furs are the costume for the role she must play to survive.

That meaning shifts when Polly is forced to sell the stoles to support her and her girls while they’re in hiding, and the sacrifice illuminates the theme of the cost of ambition. As the Mob’s encroachment and the legal investigation dry up her income, she parts with the possessions that most visibly mark her status. Selling the furs signals the loss of the security she spent years building. More concretely, it’s the moment when Polly stops performing invulnerability and commits fully to her covert alliance with Eunice. She gives up the public armor of the madam and accepts the exposure that comes with secretly aiding the prosecution.