Sinclair Ross’s Praire Isolation by Symbolism: “The Lamp at Noon”

“The Lamp at Noon” is a short story that focuses on the reality of the desiccated, secluded, and expansive prairies. Set on the haunting Canadian prairies, weather emulates the emotions of Ellen, a housewife desperate for freedom of the dustbowl lifestyle. The authority of wind and dust seem to taunt Ellen and her husband, Paul, into desperation. Ross applies symbolism across the pages of “The Lamp at Noon” to inform the reader of the lonely emotions that are wrought by the desolate and barren prairies.

In Ross’s short story the use of three important symbols is crucial. The first is the lamp, which on the whole embodies the spirit and optimism that Ellen feels towards her marriage to Paul. ” [Ellen] lit the lamp,” (7) just prior to her much anticipated lunch with Paul, where she would argue her sentiments about eradicating their lives of “[t]histles and tumbleweeds” (10). Before lunch Ellen seemed confident that, this time, Paul may finally understand her growing concerns about the prairies – she lights the lamp, just as she lights her hopeful feelings. As Ellen waits for Paul by the window the “lamp reach[es] out through the open door” (7) towards Paul, subsequently it is Ellen who is reaching out to Paul.

In the course of the couples fiery discussion “the lamp [ ] threw strong lights and shadows on their faces,” (9) denoting Ellen’s dimming hopes that their conversation will be as optimistic as she. Paul was “compelled by his anxiety”(14) to return to the house, after exiting their discussion abruptly, to resolve his matters with Ellen. But his return was not greeted with Ellen; it was greeted with Ellen’s vanished hope that Paul would ever understand her – “the lamp [was] blown out” (16). Ellen’s hopes and confidences in her marriage and life with Paul were muted as she blew out the lamp – the light of their relationship.

A second important symbol is the merciless dust. The dust in “The Lamp at Noon” compels frailty of Paul and Ellen’s marriage and the unsettled particles that come between them. The particles of dust that separate Paul and Ellen are of Ellen’s concerns for vanity and the better things life may offer, and of Paul’s ideals of independence. The dust particles, having been afloat for “thr[ee] day[s]” (9), become so “impenetrable” (7) between Paul and Ellen that they can barely see each other – they are blinded by dust to one another’s needs. Ellen’s “own throat was parched with dust” (8). As Ellen becomes frustrated with her and Paul’s colliding hopes she flees into the heart of the dust storm, which ironically symbolizes every particle of Paul and Ellen’s emotions colliding with one another. As Paul discovers Ellen at the end of the story, her dust-strewn hair is “in matted strands around her neck and face” (17). The dust of Paul’s emotions has infiltrated her until she is lost and has no hope of continuing without Paul’s help. Here is where she realizes that “tomorrow will be fine” (17)

The “[d]emented wind” (7) becomes the most helpful symbol in assisting the reader in decoding Ellen’s push and pull of emotion. The wind in “The Lamp at Noon” embodies Ellen. The paragraph in which describes how Ellen “fix[es] her eyes upon the clock” (8) proves to be the most effectual in alluding Ellen as a flurry of wind. As Ellen is isolated in the house, awaiting Paul, she hears her own sentiments, which the narrator describes as wind – ” [t]he wind in flight, and the wind that pursued,” (8). The wind in flight images her desire to hold back her feelings, but as she sits and reflects about her rage at Paul, her wind in pursuit “sh[akes] the eaves apart”(8) in anger. Ellen’s apprehension to keep her feelings from Paul “spr[ings] inside the room, distraught” (8) as if it were lost, but her more powerful sensation to tell Paul “shook the walls, and thudded tumbleweeds against the window” (8).

As a result of her isolation in a tiny farmhouse, Ellen has acquired time to revel over her desperate feelings of solitude. At the latter end of the story Paul finds himself experiencing isolation as his wife has for years. Sitting alone in his barn the “wind persisted as a woman’s cry” (14) – Ellen’s cries for freedom were heard in the wind. As Ellen has fled the home into the storm, her anxiety grows and affects Paul as the wind “wails through the loft” (14). Paul hears the wind scream Ellen’s complaints of the dust, and the boredom created by the prairies. Thus, it is easily seen how the wind has embodied Ellen’s passions and created an emotional storm that afflicts Paul and Ellen’s “isolated acre” (7).

In both “The Lamp at Noon” and “The Painted Door”, another prairie based piece by Ross, Ross employs weather to imitate the feelings of the key personalities, but more importantly he uses prairie landscape and weather to exemplify the fissures between husband and wife. Crying winds, lonely moments, and climatic symbolism are features of both short stories, which implies Ross’s message of the prairies – the isolation will keep one frantic for freedom. The effect of domestic light, fogging dust and raging wind has created a foundation for the reader of “The Lamp at Noon” to base conclusions of the prairie lifestyle. Through these three significant symbols Ross has created a tempest of emotion between two isolated personalities.