Rose's Flower Arrangement

The tumbleweed arrangement that Rose so carefully works on to impress George and to establish her identity as a formidable element of the Burbank ranch (she places it right in the foyer) symbolizes her failure to do either and in turn symbolizes her position as an outsider. George is not entirely sure how to respond to the arrangement, a tangle of tumbleweeds fastened to a slate shingle. He understands Rose is attempting to express herself creatively and yet finds the arrangement curiously unattractive, even ugly, although he is too gentle, too kind to say that. Phil, although he finds the arrangement laughably amateurish, does admire Rose’s efforts to shape random materials into some kind of creative whole. That Rose aspires and fails symbolizes her character, always struggling to exceed the reality of who she is, thus making frustration and disappointment inevitable. Later the...