Luster

Throughout the novel, mirrors represent a confrontation of reality and a reflection of the past. For Edie, her own reflection reminds her of her mother as “when I get up in the morning, I look in the mirror and I see only my mother’s face” (68). As a reflection of her mother, Edie confronts in the mirror the ways in which she continues her mother’s legacy of depression. The morning after she willingly accepts Eric’s beating, Edie finds “a bruise that makes the resemblance more pronounced” (69). The physical bruising on her face serves as a symbol of the emotional battering her mother endured until her death by suicide. She remembers her father and “the way he would stand before the mirror and practice his smile” (68). Her father’s performative charm reflects Edie’s own attempts to hide her true feelings of loneliness and isolation. These moments in the mirror operate as reminders of Edie’s inability to leave the past behind. It is only after accepting this reality that Edie is able to complete a self-portrait of herself and accurately portray who she is.