Tin Man

“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 Michael and Ellis consider what happened in their lives versus what could have happened. Additionally, this dichotomy and resulting struggle also reflect Ellis’s own personal divisions as he considers Annie and Michael, the two people in his life whom he truly, deeply loved.

“This had always been the worst time, when the quiet emptiness could leave him gasping for breath. She was there, his wife, a peripheral shadow moving across a doorway, or in the reflection of a window, and he had to stop looking for her.”

In the years following Annie’s death, Ellis finds himself alone, but he cannot shake the feeling that her presence still lingers on with him. He is haunted by her memory, and even though the emptiness of his lonely life constantly surrounds him, the absence of his loved ones leaves him claustrophobic, as though he cannot escape the pain and tragedy that is implicit in the very silence of the room.

“And he remembered thinking that his father could do anything and was afraid of nothing. And those large hands that liked to spar in the boxing ring were also capable of beautiful gestures, like splashing onto his cheeks and neck the sweet musky scent that completed him.”

As a young boy, Ellis learns to idealize his father, Leonard, and through his innocent gaze, he appreciates both the rough and gentle parts of his father. He sees a duality in Leonard that captures the toughness his father exudes as well as the love he has for Ellis. However, this understanding of Leonard does not last, because when the young Ellis acknowledges his father’s gentle side and expresses his love for Leonard with an eager hug, Leonard physically pulls him out of this honest embrace, teaching him that expressing love for another male is somehow a shameful thing, an indication of “weakness” that has no place in Leonard’s toxic conception of masculinity.

“You can’t kill nasturtiums, she’d once declared, but he had. All those delicate, brilliant ideas had withered in the shade of his neglect. Only the hardy remained beneath the overgrown brambles. Honeysuckle trailers, camellias, they were all in there somewhere, and he could see thick clusters of scarlet heads shining out of the undergrowth like lanterns.”

Annie’s garden is symbolic of Ellis’s experiences after he loses Annie and Michael. When she is still alive, Annie assures him that nasturtiums cannot die, but through neglect, Ellis manages to kill them, leaving only the toughest of flowers alive in the garden. His neglect of the flowers represents his own self-neglect when it comes to his feelings. He has refused to share his pain with anyone for so long that his tragedy now eats away at him. The garden represents his emotional state, withering without the support of Annie and Michael.

“Complementing colors are ones that make the other stand out. Like blue and orange, said his mother, as if reciting off the page. Like me and Ellis, said Michael.”

In this excerpt, Michael and Ellis, as young boys, talk to Dora about art. When Michael describes himself and Ellis in terms of complementary colors, this parallel foreshadows their future relationship. In these early years, the two boys love and support each other effortlessly during times of tragedy. Later, when they are in France as adults, they finally live authentically, creating a life of love for a brief moment before Ellis’s internalized shame compels him to push Michael away.

“The only sound in the room came from his father, who was polishing his leather work boots. The angry scratch of bristles being worked across the toe. The sound of spit, sharp and incessant against a clock counting down.”

In this scene, before Dora’s funeral, Ellis returns home and finds Leonard deeply unhappy. The ominously heavy mood of the scene is invoked via the personification of the “angry scratch of bristles” and the tense imagery of a “clock counting down,” both of which imply that a barely restrained explosion is imminent. Despite the tragedy and sadness of the day, Leonard persistently works at the everyday task of polishing his work boots, but the implicit hostility of his actions emphasizes the distance and silence that remain between father and son.

“They sat there quietly, not talking about death, or the kiss, or how life was going to change. They watched the shifting colors of the sun and the deep shadows eavesdropped on their grief, and the vivid descant of birdsong slowly muted to unimaginable silence.”

Silence is frequently invoked in Tin Man to draw attention to the emotional turmoil that the characters experience. In the absence of dialogue, the feelings that impact them are brought to the forefront, juxtaposed with the sight and sounds around them. In this instance, Ellis and Michael sit together in silence, unwilling to discuss the major events of the day. Instead, they sit and contemplate the grief of losing Dora, experiencing the moment together.

“The churchyard had been one of Annie’s favorite places to go and read. It was out of the way, but summer days she got on her bike and she made the effort. The air hazy with pollen, the sound of organ practice behind her, the occasional call of a pheasant in the field beyond.”

By describing the churchyard as Annie’s favorite place to read, Winman reveals her liking for being alone in a place in which she can see nature and hear the day continuing around her. She likes having this picturesque background, much like Dora liked having her painting to bring her peace and confidence. By burying her here, Ellis is able to visit her and be reminded of her nature and habits of enjoying the peace of the surrounding scenery. There also lies an element of irony that even in life, she enjoyed spending time in a place where she would be interred upon her untimely death.

“Three weeks later, Michael did come back to them as if he’d heard their lament across the sea. He walked in the same way he had walked out, with little explanation and that daft grin across the face. And, and for a while, they became them again.”

Michael’s effortless disappearance and return demonstrate how close the three characters are to each other. When he rejoins Ellis and Annie, it as though he never left. This relationship is further solidified when the narrative states that Michael returned as though he knew how much they needed him in that moment. This description implies that an intangible and half-magical connection bonds the three of them and allows them to anticipate each other’s needs.

“[Ellis] wondered again why he hadn’t gone to the talk with them that long-ago evening. And he didn’t push the thought away as he usually did, but he stayed with it, listened to it because it couldn’t hurt him today, not there.”

One of the many regrets that Ellis has in Tin Man is the fact that he did not accompany Annie and Michael to the event that proved to be their last. The Silent Burden of Regret is one that effects Ellis deeply, both because he loses Annie and Michael, and also because he himself is condemned to remain, alone and in the silence of his unexpressed grief, which is made even worse by his survivor’s guilt.

“They drove him to the hospital. There were no sirens or flashing lights, there was no hurry because it was all over. Annie looked peaceful. A bruise around her temple, stupid really, that that’s all it took.”

This excerpt emphasizes Ellis’s visceral disbelief by describing the contrast between Annie’s “peaceful” appearance and the inescapable fact of her death. She dies in a car crash, and Ellis expects there to be more than simply a bruise on her temple. The lack of physical damage makes her death feel even more unreal to him.

“Summer light shone in. Pollen dust diffused the scene, the scent of flowers, smells of linseed and coffee, brushes standing in olive cans, wildflowers too. A paint-splattered bed in the corner and me making martinis naked, as G painted an abstract aberration of light across a field.”

When Michael lives with G, he lives authentically, just as he always wanted to do with Ellis. In this moment, the legacy of Dora is apparent, for she too was influenced by Van Gogh’s painting of sunflowers, and she encouraged both Michael and Ellis to embrace their true selves and be beautiful. Now, G is an avid painter, the art surrounding them echoing the influence of the Van Gogh painting. There are flowers present, and the summer light warms the room. These elements, combined with Michael’s relationship, demonstrate that he is living up to Dora’s expectations.

“Once, in the throes of passion, I’d declared I’d do anything for him. So this now, this is my anything for him. How shy our bodies are now, G. How sad we are. He likes me to comb his hair because he remembers when he was still handsome. I do it. And I tell him he’s still handsome.”

As G deals with the debilitating effects of AIDS, Michael faces the tragedy of losing his partner. G’s death is not quick like Michael and Annie’s will one day be. Instead, he slowly wastes away, and Michael must watch as his lover’s health, youth, and beauty are drained from him. Michael’s quietly earnest reflections in this moment illustrate his dedication to his former lover, and he faithfully keeps his promise to do anything for G.

“Back at the hospital in G’s room. I hold his hand and I whisper to him, Cadmium Orange, Cerulean Blue, Cobalt Violet. He stirs. I stroke his head. Oxide of Chromium, Naples Yellow Light. This is my lullaby of color to him.”

As Michael repeats the names of colors to G, who was always a consummate artist, this loving gesture once again recalls the influence of Van Gogh’s painting of sunflowers. Just as the painting’s colors and scenery calmed Dora and a young Michael and Ellis, Michael tries to replicate this sense of peace by lulling G with a litany of colors, evoking images that to bring G calm feelings.

“I remember standing on the ferry deck, as Dover receded. Our hands on the rail, my little finger touching his. The excitement of travel churning in my guts, an urge to kiss him, but of course, I couldn’t. Suddenly, his finger moved against my skin. The electricity in my body could have lit up the fucking ship.”

When Michael and Ellis go to France, a place where no one knows them, they are still inhibited by The Societal Constraints on Authentic Expression. Michael wants to touch Ellis to signify his excitement for the trip and his feelings for him, but he believes that he cannot. When Ellis touches him instead and confirms that he has similar feelings, Michael lights up, suddenly feeling seen. His description of being charged with electricity conveys his visceral excitement at realizing that he and Ellis share identical views of the world in this moment.

“And for the four remaining days—the ninety-six remaining hours—we mapped out a future away from everything we knew. When the walls of the map were breached, we gave one another courage to build them again. And we imagined our home an old stone barn filled with junk and wine and paintings, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and bees.”

When Michael and Ellis live authentically together in France for a few days, they begin to envision a vibrant future with each other, in which they can continue to be themselves. They plan this future as a way of protecting themselves from the censure of the outside world’s prejudices, which inevitably seek to destroy their mutual happiness in one another. Michael feels as though this vision needs protection, for he understands that Ellis finds it impossible to break free of the fear and shame that Leonard has instilled in him over the years. The image of a wall to protect this future captures Michael’s siege mentality and his full awareness that his optimistic vision is essentially under attack from intangible social forces.

“I had crushes, I had lovers, I had orgasms. My trilogy of desire, I liked to call it, but I’d no great love after him. Not really. Love and sex became separated by a wide river and one the ferryman refused to cross.”

The legacy of Michael and Ellis’s young love changes the trajectory of Michael’s life, altering his approach to love and rendering him far more detached from his deepest sources of joy. Ellis is the only person he truly loves, and he is constantly trying to replicate this lost relationship with pale imitations rather than fully embracing an independent life. The fact that he is no longer truly living is reflected in Winman’s oblique reference to Charon, the infamous ferryman of Greek mythology, who ferries souls across the river Styx and into the underworld. By invoking this death-related imagery to describe Michael’s views on “love and sex,” Winman implies that all semblance of vibrance in Michael’s relationships departed along with Ellis.

“G died on 1 December 1989. I haven’t cried. But sometimes I feel as if my veins are leaking, as if my body is overwhelmed, as if I’m drowning from the inside.”

Winman uses a series of water-based similes to capture the grief that Michael feels over the loss of G. He describes being overwhelmed as though he is “drowning from the inside.” Just as Ellis is later overwhelmed by the silence and space left in the wake of Annie and Michael’s deaths, Michael now struggles with the sudden absence of G, unable to escape the overwhelming force of his unexpressed emotions.

“So I keep to the track, transfixed by the motion of walking, trusting in an invisible remedy that will make me feel human once again.”

As Michael struggles to overcome his grief over the loss of G, he takes to walking through France, hoping to catalyze a return to normalcy. Once again, Winman examines the unique impact of grief as Michael describes feeling less than human. Because he cannot find himself, he takes to the simplest of actions, walking, to gain a literal sense of forward motion while remaining emotionally mired in place.

“And now, I’m nervous. Naked in front of the mirror, I scour every inch of my body, searching for those telltale purple smudges that have afflicted others. I find nothing. The odd mosquito bite, of course, by my ankles and at the back of my knees. I sit on the bed and my fear is subsumed by the yellow warmth and comfortable surroundings. I breathe deeply and slowly, and I let the moment pass.”

While in France, Michael dreads the sudden appearance of the telltale signs of AIDS on his body. He is anxious and obsessed, waiting for the inevitable. He checks his body repeatedly and feels uncomfortable in his own skin, nervous to see himself naked. Winman goes into great detail to convey the agony of his uncertainty and fear. However, she contrasts this anguish with descriptions of “the yellow warmth and comfortable surroundings” that once again invoke Dora’s painting of sunflowers, and it is clear that in Michael’s own system of symbolism, the color yellow gives him peace and hope.

“In the distance, I can see Saint-Rémy and the oscillation of Avignon. I can see the Alps. I venture further into the landscape. If it was a man I would call it rugged and thoughtful and scruffy. If it was a man I think it would be Ellis.”

Michael sees Ellis everywhere, and more than once, he compares his lost lover to the beauty of the landscape. In this instance, he associates Ellis with ruggedness and care, a comparison that is reminiscent of Ellis’s earliest views of his own father. Thus, Michael’s perception of Ellis in this moment only further solidifies the idea that Leonard’s influence profoundly shaped the man that Ellis has become: someone tough who keeps his emotions largely hidden. However, Michael knows how caring and thoughtful Ellis can be.

“And I wonder what the sound of a heart breaking might be. I think it might be quiet, unperceptively so, and not dramatic at all. Like the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.”

In this passage, heartbreak is described as a silent, anticlimactic moment, and this image matches Michael’s own experiences as he was forced to quietly watch as the man he loves married a woman whom he also cares for. By describing the sound as one like “an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth,” Winman conveys Michael’s complex blend of defeat and acquiescence, for he spends his entire life pining for Ellis, feeling constantly let down by his fruitless pursuit to replicate the same intensity of their love with others.