Tatiana’s white dress is a symbol of childhood and youth. Even at the start of the novel, the dress is too small for Tatiana. Although she longs to grow up, she resents her body for outgrowing the dress, positioning her on the threshold between childhood and adulthood—longing for one while lamenting the other. Tatiana initially wears the dress when her father sends her out to buy food for the family—a task that highlights her naïveté and under preparedness for the harrowing life ahead as the war continues. The dress has “crimson roses embroidered on the thick, smooth, snow-white cotton. The roses weren’t buds; they were blooms” (23). The white color symbolizes Tatiana’s innocence, while the red blooms foreshadow her coming loss of innocence as she begins to come of age.

Later in the novel, the women have received pamphlets telling them to wear white so the German pilots don’t bomb them, and Tatiana wears the white dress in anticipation of going out to the ration shop. Alexander reveals that the pamphlets are German propaganda, designed to make the women more visible targets for attacks from the air, underscoring Tatiana’s innocence and naïveté.

Early on in Tatiana and Alexander’s relationship, Alexander gives Tatiana a copy of The Bronze Horseman and Other Poems by Aleksandr Pushkin, a 19th century Russian poet, playwright, and novelist. The book operates on multiple symbolic levels. The title poem in the collection, “The Bronze Horseman,” is about the conflict between the individual and the State; it contrasts the statue of Peter the Great (and all of his grand ideas for Russia) with the life of a lowly, repressed Russian citizen—the same tension echoed in Simons’s The Bronze Horseman. Although Alexander receives multiple medals of honor during the war and although Tatiana risks her life repeatedly for her countrymen, their country does little to ensure their well-being.

Tatiana’s copy of the book also represents her connection to Alexander. He gives her the book, which once belonged to his mother, to convey his feelings for her. Tatiana is so protective of the book—lunging at Dasha and wresting the book from her when she tries to burn it—because it helps her sustain her connection to Alexander when they are apart.