Tin Man

“She remembered being out in the back garden, as lights from the Cowley Car Plant spilled across the darkening sky, smoking her last cigarette, thinking there must be more to life.”

In this scene, Dora struggles to find her place and accept her life in the lackluster town where she lives with Leonard. This feeling is captured in the heavy tone that Winman uses in this excerpt. The only light comes from the Cowley Car Plant, and the fact that she is smoking her last cigarette conveys the idea of nearly exhausted resources with nothing good to look forward to. This feeling pushes her toward the Van Gogh painting that allows her to find an abstract escape from her life.

“Do it and I’ll kill you. If not now, then when you sleep. This painting is me. You don’t touch it, you respect it. Tonight I’ll move into the spare room. And tomorrow you’ll buy yourself another hammer. All for a painting of sunflowers.”

When Dora hangs the painting, she fiercely protects it from Leonard, who is angered that she did not pick the prize he wanted. The painting inspires a strong sense of independence that Dora uses to finally stand up to Leonard and change the dynamic of their relationship. She establishes a strong connection to the painting, describing it as a part of herself and demonstrating the hope and strength that it instills in her.

“Drinkers outside the City Arms pub had looked on awkwardly and shuffled their feet. It had been a standoff between excess and sobriety. But hadn’t the road always been a point of tension between east and west? Two ends of the spectrum, the haves and have-nots, whether it be faith or money or tolerance.”

As Ellis walks through the town, he notices the men outside the bar and the struggle between sobriety and drunkenness. This image of duality and struggle is one that echoes throughout the novel, as both