51 pages • 1 hour read
Playworld
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Symbols & Motifs
New York City
The bustling, urban metropolis of New York City is the setting of the majority of the novel and is symbolic of Griffin’s life. The novel’s title itself is referential to New York and the constant, playful energy of the place. Because the protagonist Griffin Hurt is born and grows up in Manhattan, New York, the setting dictates the majority of his coming-of-age experiences, conflicts, trials, and excitements. While the city is often overwhelming—filled with light, sound, color, and activity—it also offers Griffin an endless realm of discovery. The way that Griffin observes, describes, and depicts New York City conveys his love for this setting:
Oh, there is something fantastical about this island. There must have been a spell cast upon it from before when this land was Arcadia, was Manhattan, and it is this: you can take two people, place them within shouting distance of each other, set them on their way, and in their lifetimes, they might never cross paths again (501-02).
Griffin exclaims at the beauty, wonder, and magic of New York in this moment, which captures his intimacy with the city. Although he’s lived there all his life, he knows that he’ll never fully understand New York. It is the city’s mysteriousness that both scares and delights Griffin. The same is true of life, and Griffin’s life in particular. At times, Griffin feels overwhelmed and burdened by his fast-paced lifestyle, but at other times, these challenges inspire and motivate him. Just as he knows there will always be something new to discover in New York City, he knows there will always be something new to discover in his life and himself.
Cars
Images and descriptions of cars recur throughout the novel, and these repeated vehicular references create a motif that represents freedom and escape. Car scenes and images include those surrounding Sam Shah’s Ferrari, Shel Hurt’s Buick, Mr. West’s Buick, and Naomi’s Mercedes, among others. In some scenes, characters like Sam and Shel teach Griffin how to drive, specifically emphasizing the importance of him learning to operate a manual transmission. When he acquires this ability, Griffin feels more capable and confident.
In other scenes, Griffin is a passenger—Naomi most often drives him around in her Mercedes when they take their drives together; Sam and Naomi transport Griffin to their home in Great Neck; Al Moretti drives Griffin to the train station in Montauk; and Shel and Lily Hurt drive Griffin and Oren between their friends’ houses and the city. The scenes where Griffin isn’t behind the wheel show his desire for freedom—he is often looking out the window in these moments and longingly studying his surroundings. He is also in a more childish position, as someone is toting him around, and he has less agency. By way of contrast, in the scenes where Griffin is driving, he is exercising his agency and beginning to exact his adult freedom. Most notably, the images of Griffin driving Amanda West around Westhampton and driving Sam’s car from Great Neck back to Manhattan illustrate Griffin’s work to claim autonomy over his life.
Fire
The fire that Griffin and Oren Hurt accidentally cause as children is symbolic of upheaval and trauma. When Griffin is six and Oren is four, they stay up late playing and knock over a candle, lighting their father’s coat on fire. The fire destroys “a great deal of [the Hurts’] property,” including “clothing, furniture, jewelry” and the “work of several artist friends” (21). The family is forced to give up their Lincoln Towers apartment and relocate to a more expensive building they can’t afford. In these ways, the fire disrupts the family’s otherwise predictable life.
Furthermore, Griffin’s memories of the fire are a source of unease. He blames himself for the incident and often refers back to it when he’s feeling guilty, ashamed, or confused. He later learns that his memories of the fire differ from Lily’s and Oren’s memories of the event—a phenomenon that makes him question himself and his past. Ross uses the fire to show how childhood trauma might distort the individual’s sense of the past, present, and future, and therefore of himself, a perspective that can be applied to the other traumas that Griffin is experiencing and processing throughout the novel. Griffin identifies the fire as the most catastrophic event in his life for many years, but later learns that the incident didn’t even occur the way he thought it did. In this way, Griffin’s mind has distorted the past out of self-preservation, again highlighting the fallibility of memory and the impact of trauma on perspective.
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