62 pages • 2-hour read
Crome Yellow
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Peach Stones
During the war, old Mrs. Budge, who lives in a neighboring country house, collected thousands of peach stones and sent them to the British government. She tells Denis about this during the Crome Charity Fair, explaining that early in the war, the Daily Mirror said that the government needed peach stones for an undisclosed reason. Having 36 peach trees in her walled garden, Mrs. Budge began eating peaches by the dozen to collect the stones. She kept detailed records of how many peaches she ate, even noting that when she ate fewer in 1917, it was largely because three of her gardeners were drafted. However, between 1916 and late 1918, she ate almost 8,000, which ultimately led to health problems. That Mrs. Budge never finds out what the government does with the peach stones points to the strange and often pointless ways the British aristocracy participated in the war effort. Similarly, Mrs. Budge’s lack of curiosity represents the elite class’s disengagement from the realities of the rest of the world.
Animals
Animals appear intermittently throughout the novel, and while they do not have a single symbolic function, they allow various characters to reveal certain facets of their personalities. For example, Henry Wimbush takes great pride in showing off the animals at Crome’s farm, but he is not actually a farmer or depend on farming to support himself financially. This suggests that he enjoys performing certain aspects of working-class labor but ultimately values his own wealth and comfort. Anne feels sorry for animals that are used simply for breeding, which suggests that she does not see reproduction as something that inherently gives life meaning. When Ivor and Mary spend the night outside, Ivor grabs a feather from a frightened peacock. He hands it to Mary triumphantly and calls it an “angel’s feather” (110). This indicates that Ivor sees the usefulness of other creatures’ bodies when they can serve his interests but perhaps does not value their right to autonomy or happiness. Ultimately, the characters’ interactions with animals provide a window into how they feel about other people, about themselves, and about life.
Poetry and Poetics
Poems and discussions about poetry recur throughout the narrative, highlighting the novel’s interest in words, language, literary history, and ultimately its own constructed nature. Denis in particular enjoys thinking and talking about how words sound and how their sound is related to their meaning. As he rides to Crome on his bicycle, for example, he thinks about compiling a dictionary of French words for English novelists, listing in his head the words he would include. He thinks about English words that sound similar: “Dinted, dimpled, wimpled—his mind wandering down the corridors of assonance and alliteration” (3). He reiterates the importance of words later when he tells Mr. Scogan about his personal history with the word “carminative” and says that wordsmiths and poets are essentially magicians: “Formulated by their art, the most insipid statements become enormously significant” (116). This claim underscores the way the novel—like many modernist novels—is rethinking the relationship between words and their significations, questioning whether the sounds that form words actually have inherent meanings. Additionally, the novel’s inclusion of entire poems by Denis, Ivor, and Hercules Lapith undermines the traditional definition of a novel as consisting only of prose fiction.
Unlock the meaning behind every key symbol & motif
See how recurring imagery, objects, and ideas shape the narrative.
- Explore how the author builds meaning through symbolism
- Understand what symbols & motifs represent in the text
- Connect recurring ideas to themes, characters, and events