Lady In The Lake

The painting on page 212 is being described. Just by reading the first sentence you can tell that he is pretty drunk. He starts to describe the painting, and he does a pretty good job for being intoxicated. It seems for the first time in the novel that water is being described in a positive way. It's the ocean, there is sun, and girls in bathing suits--a vision of all bright colors. He even says the bay in the distance is bluer than any bay he's ever seen. He also keeps describing the painting in 3's. There are three girls in the painting, each with an umbrella, and 3 ranges of hills in the background. I believe that the three girls with umbrellas are significant to the murders. All murders were cover ups, somehow related to water. The first murder was drowned and given another identity. The second was overdosed by Mildred, the cover up was by her husband who made it look like she inhaled CO2 from the car. The third was Mildred who was strangled. All three of these murders were covered up, which is symbolic of the umbrellas, which seem to be more like parasols which is even more symbolic. Parasols are thin and don't really cover the sun, like the murders, the cover ups were not enough. The three hills are also significant to the murders, they each stand for the different murders, the mounds are like graves. Also, although the painting has negative connotation behind it, it is the first time that water is being described in a positive way, when it isn't real.