A Note to the Reader
Jean has two intense experiences outside the display window of the orthopedic appliance shop that is underneath Les Amis Des Vieux Maitres. There is lots of symbolism at work in those scenes, but b...
Teeth
The following moment in "Blue Period" strikes us as peculiar:Three late afternoons a week I spent in a dentist's chair, where, within a period of a few months, I had eight teeth extracted, three of...
Noses
Noses are important in "Blue Period." In Jean's "Character Analysis" we discuss the significance of the moment where "the sun came up and sped toward the bridge of [his] nose at the rate of ninety-...
Chairs
If you read what we wrote about teeth, you probably thought about the dentist chair at some point. So, we can already assume that chairs are linked to pain and anxiety. Before we hear about the den...
Religious Imagery
Religion is always on Jean's mind – he is a Salinger wonder-kid after all. The epigraph to Nine Stories the collection that contains "Blue Period" is a Zen Kōan. Jean tells the Yoshotos...