1. By: Alexa Clampitt, Sarah Deckert, Fiona Duncan, & Luke Jorgens
Clean & Dirty
By: Alexa Clampitt, Sarah Deckert, Fiona Duncan, & Luke Jorgens

2. Symbol Introduction
When Melinda enters the art room, she says, "It is dusty in a clean-dirt kind of way. The floor is layered with dry splotches of paint, the walls plastered with sketches of tormented teenagers and fat puppies, the shelves crowded with clay pots" (10).
Stains cannot be cleaned up, therefore it shows that Melinda cannot fully get rid of what happened but she can live with it

3. Examples
"The back wall has built-in shelves filled with dusty textbooks and a few bottles of bleach. A stained armchair and an old-fashioned desk peak from behind a collection of mops and brooms" (25).
"She pushes her books to the floor and knocks the green nail polish on the sand colored carpet...I try to soak up the nail polish, but I make the stain bigger" (34).
"It is clean. I had visions of art supplies, posters and rotting fruit everywhere" (121).
I hook my hair behind my ears. I should have washed it. My face is dirty" (124).
"I must look like a dog chasing its tail, twisting and twirling, trying to see the stains on my back in the mirror" (173).
"Maybe then he'd hire somebody to keep it clean, or an armed guard to stop people from plugging up the toilet, smoking, or writing on the walls" (174).
"Then she scrubs the stains. I shiver. I'm standing in a bra, not a terribly clean bra and it is freezing in here" (174). 
"I dig my fingers into the dirt and squeeze. A small, clean part of me waits to warm and burst through the surface" (188).
"There is no avoiding it, no forgetting. No running away, or flying, or burying, or hiding" (197).

4. Symbol's Last Appearance in Denouement
"...Dripping shards of ice that vanish in a puddle of sunlight on the stained floor" (198).
Floor is still dirty.
Melinda knows she can't erase mistakes.

5. Theme
Cleanliness and dirtiness symbolize the mistakes that Melinda has made that she cannot clean up or forget.
"The trick to eating on it is to turn the messy side of the cushions up. The couch has two personalities: 'Melinda inhaling pepperoni and mushroom' and 'No one ever eats in the family room, no ma'am'...Flip, flip, flip-cushions reversed to show their pretty white cheeks" (15).