Andrea owns a bowl that she found at a craft fair. It was
not particularly aesthetically beautiful, but there was something about it. As a real
estate broker, she uses the bowl in the open house showings with people often making
comments about the bowl.
Ann Beattie’s “Janus” addresses
the issue of adultery. In addition, the author offers the idea that success in career
and life does not makes a person happy.
Throughout the
story, the reader believes that the bowl was bought by the protagonist Andrea. Near the
end of the story, she shares this story:
She had first seen the bowl several years
earlier, at a crafts fair she had visited in secret, with her lover. He had urged her to
buy the bowl. She didn’t need more things she told him. I bought it for you, he
said.
The bowl represented
their relationship. Later, he gave her an ultimatum: her marriage or him. She said and
did nothing. So, the lover left her telling her that she was two-faced. When her husband
noticed the bowl, he asked no questions and said it was
pretty.
The bowl serves as the impetus for the story.
Andrea attributes her success in real estate to the bowl. As the story progresses,
Andrea becomes both possessive and obsessive about the bowl. As an example of her
obsessive behavior, the narrator relates that Andrea leaves the bowl at a home she has
just shown. Upon realizing she has forgotten the bowl, Andrea races back to her client's
house, wonder[ing] to herself how she could have left the bowl behind. It was like
leaving a friend at a picnic.
The bowl represented her lost
love. Mysterious even to Andrea, she believed that the bowl brought with it good
fortune. Sometimes she thought to herself: “the bowl is just a bowl.” What she really
believed was that the bowl was something that she really loved because her lover gave it
to her.
The technique used in Andrea’s real estate for
putting plants in a dark corner of the house hoping the buyer would think that the
sunshine really got into that corner symbolizes Andrea’s need for something similar
inside her.
Andrea kept the bowl on the coffee table so
that she could see it. It was large enough that it did not seem fragile or vulnerable.
This was how she felt about her love. At night, as she stared at the bowl, it was
perfect to her. It was like the world was cut in half that when looking at it she
related her heart: cut in half with no way to fix
it.
Andrea decides to tell her husband about the affair;
however, she does not know how or where to start. Her guilt overwhelms her with the
affair and for the secret that she has kept from him. Yet, her feelings for her lover
were real and enduring.
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