32 pages • 1-hour read
The Housemaid's Wedding
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Symbols & Motifs
Enzo and Millie’s Baby
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.
As Millie waits outside the room where she will be married, she feels her daughter kick inside her womb for the first time. This moment serves as a reminder of the true reason for Millie’s wedding day: to start a new life and family with Enzo, standing in contrast to her obsession with perfection throughout the story. Their unborn daughter symbolizes the new life that Millie and Enzo will build. As she waits to get married, Millie thinks, “[T]his is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me, although that may move to second place when our daughter is born” (55). Ultimately, their unborn daughter conveys the theme of The Enduring Power of Love. Millie finally begins to recognize that Enzo and their new baby are the things that truly matter, allowing her to both literally and figuratively start a new life with Enzo. The baby also acts as a symbol of forward motion; where Millie has been haunted by past trauma, the child becomes a physical manifestation of hope and healing. That the kick occurs in a liminal space, just before the ceremony, highlights the symbolic bridge between her past and her new beginning.
“Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue”
The various traditional items that Millie tries to collect throughout the story emphasize her desire to have a perfect wedding day. The four items are part of a common wedding tradition dating back to the Victorian Era, which are supposed to bring health and happiness to new marriages. As such, they become a key component to Millie’s perfect wedding, emphasizing the theme of Expectations and Desires Versus Reality. While she fixates on these items, she loses sight of what is truly important to her happiness: her life with Enzo and her daughter. Each object serves as a placeholder for symbolic ideals—heritage, renewal, shared support, and emotional peace—but Millie’s desperate search for them reveals her belief that external objects can ward off internal instability. Initially, she plans to use her mother’s necklace as the “old” object, wishing to link her parents to the new life she is building. However, when her mother abandons her, she is given Antonia’s pin, as her mother is removed from her life for good. By the story’s end, Millie learns to value Enzo’s love and her child as her reality, replacing her fixation on these traditional items and creating a sense of hope for their marriage despite the turmoil of her wedding day.
Antonia’s Pin
The pin that Enzo gives to Millie, which belonged to his sister Antonia, symbolizes Enzo’s decision to begin to heal from his grief, conveying the theme of The Value of Support in Confronting Trauma. After Enzo defended his sister from her abusive husband years before, he was forced to flee his home and his family in Sicily and has been threatened by Antonia’s husband’s powerful family ever since. When Millie meets him in The Housemaid at the Winchester home, he is working as a landscaper and pretending not to speak English, largely hiding out from the people who are pursuing him. He has struggled to start a new life since the trauma of losing his sister and killing her murderer.
In “The Housemaid’s Wedding,” Enzo gives Millie the pin, noting how his “mother gave it to [Antonio] as a little girl, and [he] found it in her jewelry box after she was killed. [He] carr[ies] it around always to remind [him] of her” (52). The act of giving such an important object to Millie on the day of their union symbolizes his decision to share his grief with Millie as they begin their new life together. The gesture transforms the pin from a relic of tragedy into a shared symbol of love and protection. It takes on new meaning after its role in their wedding, replacing part of Enzo’s trauma with the happiness he finds with Millie.
Luck
Luck functions as a recurring motif in “The Housemaid’s Wedding,” revealing how Millie’s self-perception evolves over the course of the story. Early on, she remarks that she has “never felt lucky” until Enzo (7), linking her emotional security to his love and suggesting that, for her, luck is not random chance but the rare experience of feeling safe. However, this view is quickly tested. After her parents abandon her again, Millie lashes out at herself for thinking that she could be lucky, exclaiming, “I’m not lucky—I’m never lucky!” (48). This tension between hope and disappointment reinforces the theme of Expectations and Desires Versus Reality, as Millie’s yearning for a perfect day is undercut by her past wounds.
Ultimately, the motif shifts meaning. Rather than something bestowed by fate, luck becomes a symbol of what Millie builds through love and resilience. This evolution ties directly to the theme of The Enduring Power of Love, as Millie’s emotional turning point is not when everything goes right but when she realizes that she already has what matters: Enzo and their child. By the end of the story, her sense of luck no longer depends on her parents, her dress, or the weather but on the life she is actively creating.
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