The Tenant
59 pages • 1-hour read
Freida McFaddenThe Tenant
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Symbols & Motifs
The Brownstone
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of emotional abuse, illness, and death.
Blake’s brownstone in Manhattan symbolizes the life that he has always dreamed of having. After growing up in a working-class household, Blake was the first person in his family to go to college. He then worked for Coble & Roy for 10 years, doing whatever he needed to do to climb the ladder, noting how many “enemies” he made as he leaves his office for the final time. In Blake’s eyes, the brownstone that he purchases—which he could only afford by withdrawing from his retirement account—is the quintessential home to signify his newly earned wealth and social status, and its presence as a motif is significant both to the plot and to the theme of The Hollow Signs of Success.
The brownstone is central to the plot because Whitney’s arrival as the titular tenant is the novel’s inciting incident. The need to rent part of his home is not only an embarrassment for Blake, as he can no longer afford it on his own, but it also symbolizes a breach in his life. Once Whitney arrives, his life continues to collapse, but despite everything that he goes through, Blake repeatedly decides to let Whitney stay, valuing the prestige of the brownstone over his own mental health and safety.
Ultimately, Blake decides to finally sell the brownstone at the novel’s end. This act marks a change in his character, as he finally realizes that wealth and status—and an expensive home—should not be the focus of his life. When Blake’s happiness hinged on physical objects like his home, it was easily shattered by Krista’s lies and the loss of his job. At the novel’s end, however, there is hope—as he returns home to be with his father and take over his business—that he will now value more significant things in life like his family and his happiness, understanding The Importance of Human Connection in a new way.
Fruit Flies
The fruit flies that infest Blake’s life are a symbolic representation of the insidiousness of Krista’s evil as she works to ruin his life. The fruit flies—which are attracted to the rot and decay that Krista leaves—are a physical representation of the breach of his perfect life. His place of pride and comfort, the brownstone, is overrun by Whitney’s presence and, more importantly, Krista’s lies and betrayal.
At first, Blake only notices a few fruit flies, mirroring how he only notices minor things about Whitney that bother him. However, just as his complaints about Whitney grow, the fruit flies continue to multiply until they have taken over his kitchen. What he doesn’t realize is that Krista is the origin of both, and she is orchestrating the destruction of his life. Additionally, the progression of Blake’s efforts to remove the flies parallels his efforts to get rid of Whitney. He initially ignores the flies, then tries to get rid of them with brute force, killing them with his hands. Similarly, he initially tries to force Whitney out of his home, confronting her at work about his cereal, yelling at her in the night about the noise, and dumping the rotted fruit on her bed. Ultimately, he is only able to solve both problems by addressing the true source, removing the fruit and fingers just as he uncovers Krista’s true identity and agenda.
Cleveland
Cleveland, where Blake’s father lives, is a symbolic representation of a simpler life that focuses on the theme of the importance of human connection, in contrast to the materialistic life that Blake initially leads. At the start of the novel, when Blake thinks of Cleveland, he is annoyed by his father’s request that he return home. He thinks, “[J]ust what I want as my inheritance—a struggling hardware store in Cleveland,” then angrily “burst[s] out” that he “didn’t get a degree to work at a hardware store!” (37). Initially, Cleveland represents a way of life he is trying to leave behind. However, by the novel’s end, Blake begins to see the value in his father’s life and in living in Cleveland, and its symbolic meaning to him shifts. When he talks to his father after his life is largely destroyed, Blake finally recognizes, “He was married to my mother for nearly thirty years when she died, and even though they had their financial problems and he couldn’t give her everything I thought she deserved, they were always really happy together” (164). As Blake loses his job and Krista, he becomes isolated and separated from everyone in his life. In that moment, he thinks of Cleveland and the life that his parents had, finally recognizing the value in it.
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