"Savage Poems" for a Savage Girl

Before today I had never taken a second glance at the cover painting for Lucy previous to or while reading it up to this point. Now that I focus on it, this painting titled Savage Poems, 1896, by French artist Paul Gauguin, derives quite a bit of meaning from the novel and suggests a lot about the book as well. As we read Lucy, we find that Lucy embodies some wild, savage, qualities that are a result of her past in the West Indies. We find that she does not have a good relationship with her mother- nor does she want to be anything like her mother- and that her move to North America as an au pair provides her with new experiences and beginnings. As the novel progresses, we learn that the past she so eagerly wanted to leave behind has not completely left her as she thought it had. Lucy finds herself constantly in situations that remind her of her past; either of her controlling mother, the climate, daffodils, Tanner and numerous other men she has been with, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Matthew, hands, Maude, the list goes on.

As I reflect on those instances that Lucy recounts to us, I see how all of her past is represented in Guaguin's painting. When she moved to America, it was her goal to get away from the past she wanted to lose. Now, all of these memories find their way back to her and remind her of that past. In this painting, Lucy's ethnicity is represented by the dark color of her skin and hair. The look on her face is a symbol of the distress she feels as her past finds its way into her present. As Lucy says, "I could see the present take a shape- the shape of my past" (90). Lucy also has a look of wonder in trying to figure out why her past is so involved in her present life. The fact that she is naked is a representation of the numerous times that she spends being sexually active. Also, she mentions throughout the novel the times that she ends up "with no clothes on" (67). The hand she holds up in front of her chest is a symbol of rejection and how she cannot bear to live with her past inside of her present and future, or even the recurring theme of hands throughout the novel (specifically Paul's hands and Peggy's theory about hands). The dark red background surrounding her may represent the constant overbearing of her past and how heated it makes her. I am unsure of what the animal to the left of her represents, but I believe it is a symbol of her native place. Gauguin's painting and the novel Lucy directly relate to one another and derive meaning from each other, and his depiction of Lucy shows how her past has and will always have a great influence on her life.