In many ways, the violin becomes a symbol of honoring the continuity of positive family traditions. When Jeanne dies, she leaves her violin to her granddaughter Phoebe, a talented violinist. Jeanne was a talented musician and music teacher, and because everyone in the family understands her passion for the instrument, they respect the significance of passing it to Phoebe. However, Phoebe leaves the instrument in her closet at her parents’ house for months after her grandmother’s death, barely remembering its existence. Once she remembers it, the violin takes on a life of its own in the text, becoming nearly sentient in Phoebe’s perception. She “sense[s] it suffering. Jeanne’s gift seemed to her a wounded thing. Her closet, her room, her house could not contain the blood gushing from that violin. Blood soaked the carpet, stained the walls” (55). This imagery conveys the emotional weight that such an inheritance carries.

Phoebe is initially wary of the instrument because of its deep meaning, but she soon rediscovers her truest self by playing her late grandmother’s violin and altering her entire lifestyle to honor her own deep passion for music. As she starts busking, this new ritual helps her to remember who she is and what she cares about, and she is ultimately inspired to drop out of school and become a traveling musician full-time, thereby balancing her personal autonomy with her family legacy. Later, when Helen pays a large sum of money to repair the violin for Phoebe, she is attempting to mend her family’s history and to honor her descendants’ inheritance, no matter how painful it might be for her to do so.

In “New Frames,” Richard’s new glasses represent his urge to embrace a new era of self-exploration and personal autonomy. When Debra first divorces Richard, Richard feels unmoored and cannot define himself outside of the context of his home life with Debra and his daughters. He loses the ability to care for himself, obsessing instead over his job and trying to make amends for allegedly failing the girls for years. However, these efforts are quickly diverted by his excitement over a new relationship with a young woman named Corinne, who inspires him to get new glasses and metaphorically see the world in a new way. Richard becomes energetic and buoyant, and everyone around him responds as if he is more respectable than he ever had been. However, when Richard notices how Debra looks at him while he is wearing the glasses, he decides to remove them and revert to his former behavioral patterns. By abandoning the new glasses, Richard is abandoning his first attempt at redefining himself.