The natural landscape and the winter storm in the “The Painted Door” serve as a metaphor for Ann’s sense of isolation

The natural landscape and the winter storm in the “The Painted Door” serve as a metaphor for Ann’s sense of isolation. She feels that even the environment itself is against her. The sun’s light that is supposed to be “warm, its rays seem shedding cold” to her. The warmth of John’s love didn’t feel like love to Ann. John thinks just being there like the sun is what Ann needs, but she wants more. She wants the perks that you get with staying beside him like his love and companionship. Ann cheated on John because of the very reason. Steven was there and offered his company to her, the one thing she wanted. There is a storm between John and Ann. She keeps “blowing against the” the storm that is their marriage but no matter how long she tried, the storm didn’t calm down. They both kept looking through it to understand each other but they never could.When looking through a storm, people never know how far the storm goes on for. The same thing with their storm. What they thought was a small problem turned out to be larger than that. They didn’t know each other’s motives, ideals, thoughts or even what they want from each other. Ann wants is love and compassion by her husband while John thinks that farm wives should help with the house and have to be used to the isolation. The storm Ann faced was both emotional and physical. Her emotions were confused like looking through the storm. Her voice is “chilled” when she is talking to John showing her affection and reasoning fading away and in a way isolating herself. While John was away Ann went back and forth from blaming him for leaving her alone and accepting that he had no choice. The confusion increases when Steven appears. She felt bad for cheating on him but at the same time blamed him for her actions. Steven served as medicine for Ann to get away from the simple, distant John and the environment but with most medicines, there are side effects. Before Ann and Steven committed adultery, the “lamp between them flicked as an onslaught of the storm sent sufferings through the room” indicating that even nature is against this act.