The Instrumentalist
56 pages • 1-hour read
Harriet ConstableThe Instrumentalist
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section includes discussion of suicidal ideation.
Synesthesia
Anna Maria’s synesthesia is the novel’s most overt motif. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which a stimulus to one sensory pathway, such as hearing, triggers a response in another pathway, such as vision. For Anna Maria, this takes the form of music (hearing) triggering the sight of vivid colors (vision.)
Anna Maria’s synesthesia initially sets her apart from her fellow musicians and helps to explain her special talent. Her musical skill is rooted, in part, in the way that she experiences sound in relation to color. The more vivid the colors are when she begins a piece, the more impassioned her playing becomes. This in turn produces colors that are increasingly varied, saturated, and dramatic. Synesthesia thus helps the author to characterize Anna Maria as unique: Part of her desire to succeed is rooted in her special talent and the attention she receives because of it from musicians like Vivaldi.
Anna Maria’s synesthesia has an important origin. In a moment of foreshadowing at the novel’s beginning, Anna Maria’s young mother expresses hope that her infant will see her dreams realized and will have the opportunity to live a life in “multi-color.” Anna Maria’s synesthesia is thus established early on as a “gift” from her mother. Although she does not realize it, this condition will help her to achieve her dreams and live out her mother’s highest hopes for her. As an adolescent, Anna Maria will learn that her mother too experienced synesthesia. Learning that she and her mother share the ability gives her with the strength to confront her mentor and re-establish friendships with the other girls at the Pietà.
Anna Maria’s Composition Book
Anna Maria’s composition book is a key symbol in the text. She begins composing at a young age, after Vivaldi tells her that instrumentalists’ careers are forgotten, but composers’ legacies are eternal. She devotes every spare moment she has to writing her own music. Early on, the compositions come to symbolize not only Anna Maria’s innate talent, but also her ambition. During the scant free hours that the girls are given, many choose to spend their time with one another. Anna Maria, however, spends her time practicing and composing.
Anna Maria’s compositions, because they make use of precious paper and ink procured for her by Vivaldi, also reflect The Complexity of Mentor-Protégé Dynamics. Vivaldi can see that Anna Maria possesses a rare genius and he does want to mentor her, but he has his own interests at heart. He hopes to nurture a talent who will reflect well on his abilities as a teacher and conductor, but also to encourage a musician whom he hopes will assist him with his own compositions.
Since he asks Anna Maria to contribute to his work without giving her credit for it, the composition book itself comes to symbolize The Erasure of Women’s Creative Labor. Vivaldi ultimately burns Anna Maria’s composition book, hoping to destroy the work that she created for herself and ensure that her sole, unacknowledged legacy will be her secret additions to his pieces. It is at this point in the narrative, when confronted with the sight of her work reduced to ashes, that Anna Maria resolves to stop helping Vivaldi and to make sure that she will henceforth be given credit for her own compositions.
Anna Maria’s Half-Playing Card and Note
Anna Maria’s half-playing card and the note left for her by her mother at the Pietà symbolize her mother’s enduring love even in the face of adverse circumstances. Anna Maria, because she is an orphan, does not perceive herself as a “loved” child and spends the bulk of her youth honing her skill as a musician rather than building relationships. She does not initially care about her lack of a traditional family, but as she ages her status as an orphan begins to wear on her. She is troubled by recurring nightmares in which she is drowning and, during brief moments of tenderness, wonders what it might have been like to have a father like Vivaldi. She increasingly brings the playing card out to look at it, contemplating who her mother might have been.
Later in the narrative, Vivaldi carelessly tells her that her mother likely tried to drown her in a canal, and Anna Maria begins to worry that she and her mother are both “monsters.” This, she believes, is why she sacrifices her friendships on the altar of music: It is not because of her ambition, which would be acceptable to her, but because there is something inherently “wrong” with her. Elizabetta Marcini helps Anna Maria to find out the truth of her parentage, at which point Anna Maria realizes that her mother did indeed love her fiercely. This allows her to place herself within a real family framework and to understand that both she and her mother are stronger than many would give them credit for. The playing card, which she’s held onto all of these years, shows her that she was cared for and that she can care for others in return.
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