Hscbelonging - the Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald The short story, ‘The Ice Palace’, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is set in the fictional city of Tarleton, Georgia. Sally Carrol Happer, a Southerner, is engaged to a Northerner, Harry Bellamy, who comes from North Carolina. When they both travel to Harry’s hometown, Sally’s struggles to settle in, before she realises she wants to return home. Sally’s alienation in North Carolina is accentuated through the contrast of climate between the North and her hometown. In Tarleton, “the sunlight dripped over the house like golden paint”. The imagery conveyed through the simile establishes a “warm” and “comforting” environment. However, in the North, it is “very cold”. The “solitary farmhouse” that is “ugly and bleak and lone on the…waste” is symbolic of her own alienation in North Carolina. The imagery illustrated contrasts with the “sun[ny]” Tarleton, accentuating her distance and disconnection. Similarly, when she saw the farmhouse, she felt “compassion for the souls shut in there waiting for spring”. This is symbolic of her own longing for spring, and how she feels trapped and dead, like the “souls”. Sally’s attempt to adjust to North Carolina is conveyed when “she rang the porter to ask for another blanket” as it was “very cold”, however, “he couldn’t give her one”. She struggles to conform, and so “squeeze[es]…into the bottom of her berth…doubling…the bedclothes”. The porter’s actions represent the inflexibility and lack of cooperation from the North, so Sally attempts to compromise instead. However, the compromise is unsuccessful, as she is still “uncomfortabl[e]”. Her experiences in North Carolina are represented allegorically when she is lost in the “passage[s]” of the Ice Palace. Her inability to become familiar and establish a connection with the North is resonated when she lost, leading to her “dreary loneliness”, leading to
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