Girl With a Pearl Earring

Knives are present in many crucial moments in the novel, from the opening scene when Griet first meets the Vermeers, to the climactic scene of confrontation with Catharina, to the first image we have of Griet as a butcher’s wife. Because they are always potentially threatening, knives take on meaning in the story depending on who wields them and with what intent, level of control, and degree of skill. Though they are never shown to cause physical harm, except when Griet cuts her palm after learning that Vermeer is dead, they are threatening when Catharina is present, as she is the only person who seems to have no skills, even wielding a knife. 

The pearl earrings are symbols of class, jealously guarded by Catharina, coveted by Griet, and used by Vermeer for their ability to catch light in his paintings. In Part Three of the novel, they also come to symbolize the relationship between Griet and Vermeer, and Griet’s initial refusal to wear them is about her fear of being “ruined” by the scandal that will ensue. Her attempt to refuse them in Part Four, however, is a rejection of the bourgeois, artistic world they represent, for which she no longer has any use—“a butcher’s wife did not wear such things, no more than a maid did” (233).