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Marissa Cook
Professor Vivian
English 120
8 April 2013
Stories, Mirrors, and Mysteries: Joels Development of Identity
When Joel Knox, of Truman Capotes Other Voices, Other Rooms, arrives at Noon City
in search of his father, he finds himself instead in a lonely, ghostly landscape at the isolated
Skullys Landing, the rooms of which seem to hold a great many secrets. As he begins to find
answers, he finds the childish, fairytale lens of his expectations hardly matches reality. In this
bildungsroman, unraveling these mysteries, searching for a parental figure, and developing into
maturity, Joel finds that these answersa new understanding of lifecreated a new
understanding of himself.
Joel comes to Skullys Landing alone and entirely unsure of what to expect. Yet, in the
manner of any child, his imagination had been running wild with possibilities: before receiving
the letter, he was plotting of course a stowaway voyage, or waiting on a miracle, some
Godlike action on the part of some goodhearted stranger (11-12). That his father happened to
be the stranger to his mind was simply a wonderful piece of luck (12). These daydreams have a
childlike tone and he seems to depend on the predictability of a story that everything will have a
proper ending, plot, and motive. In this same way he refers time and again to fairytales, or makes
the instances of his life into a story that act as a more understandable, predictable, and perhaps
more meaningful and whole version of reality. For instance, the story of the Snow Queen follows
him, and he wonders if he is like Little Kay, whose outlook was twisted when a splinter from
the sprites evil mirror infected his eye (11). He similarly spins a story of a blizzard in Canada

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during which his mother dies, and somehow, spinning the tale, Joel had believed every word
[] these seemed more real than Missouri and her long neck, or Miss Amy, or the shadowing
kitchen(59). In this dreamlike point of view, he has no connection to the real world, separated,
without identity, a stone-boy on a rotted stump, and is entirely unrelated to what goes on around
him (71). Furthermore, the inhabitants of the Landing, Amy, Randolph, his father, they were all
outside time, all circling the present like spirits, and they seem to him like a dream, nothing
more, even if it is a dream he cannot wake up from (127). This is the childhood lens with which
Joel sees the world, one that lends itself to glowing expectations that often are not met, and
leaves him feeling at a disjunction with reality.
One of the main characters of Joels imaginary land, his far-away room, is a man who has
no fixed identity and comes in various costumes and disguises, sometimes as a circus strongman, sometimes as a big swell millionaire, but always his name was Edward Q. Sansom (83-4).
With the lack of a father figure, Joel creates an imaginary image of his father as a constantly
shifting identity, a hero who can come in any form. Believing himself finally about to meet this
mysterious father, the reason he came all the way to Skullys Landing, his thoughts are frantic:
It was his father, of that he was sure. It must be. And what should he say: hello, Dad, Father, Mr.
Sansom? Howdyado, hello? Hug, or shake hands, or kiss? [] He [] straightened up erect,
prepared to make the best, most manly impression possibleonly to find, with some
disappointment, that it is not his father at all, but Miss Amy (43-4). This entirely contradicts his
expectations, and even stranger, he does not see his father at all. Once more, the difference
between this happening, and what hed expected, was too great, to the extent that he felt
cheated (88). As much as always his father remains absent from his life and the disappointment

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strikes him as vastly contrary to what was supposed to happen, leading to a disillusionment that
pulls him away from the storybook fantasy of his childlike mind.
The mystery that surrounds his father deepens as he spends more time at the Landing.
Amy and Randolph ignore his questions, and no one outside knows anything about what goes on
at the Landing. This sense of mystery is emphasized through the appearance of cabinets, chests,
and other closed spaces. For instance, walking around the Landing the morning after his arrival,
in one room a mirror sits with a cedar chest; apart from these two symbolic items, the chamber
is entirely bare (50). Immediately before, Joel asks once again about his father and receives no
answer. Gaston Bachelard, in The Poetics of Space, points out how inevitably a secret thought
encounters the box image (83). According to him, boxes, chests, wardrobesany object with
inner spaceintuitively symbolize intimacy, or secrets. In the appearance of a cedar chest, the
sense of concealment is further heightened. Yet, these secrets do not remain secrets. Just as Joel
inspected the contents of the parlors curio cabinet, examining the treasures kept inside, he
begins to gain access to the inner sanctums of the Landing and the answers that they provide
(Capote 87).
Although boxes may be most easily recognized as the symbolic location of secrets, a
room itself, as an intimate space for an individual, may have a similar symbolic value. Back on
the first day at the Landing, Joel sees in the hall impressive oak doors with massive brass
knobs and he [wonders] which of them, when opened, would lead to his father (50). The
connotations of impressive and massive create an image of large, sturdy doors which he
cannot simply open at a whim. Inside one of these hidden spaces, Joel can find his father, and by
extension a sense of stability and identity, but only once allowed inside. Finally brought into the
interior of his fathers bedroom, Joel learns the truth at the root to the Landings secrets: his

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father is entirely helpless and paralyzed. In light of Joels many imaginings of his father, whether
grandiose or nonexistent, this knowledge comes as a huge shock that alters all of his previous
expectations, to the extent that the father-son relationship gets reversed, and Joels father
becomes the dependent. Very clearly, there will always be more things in a closed, than in an
open, box, and his imagination more satisfying than reality, once the room is entered and the
secret divulged (Bachelard 88). In another bedroom, his first time in Randolphs room, a similar
event occurs. Randolphs many treasures are stuffed inside this room, as they might be hidden
away in a chest, including a little photograph in a silver frame which spurs the story of
Randolphs history with Mr. Sansom, a story that ends, with nearly no warning, with Ed Sansom
getting shot by Randolph (137). To Joel, this contradicts further the storybook reality that he
expects, and it is as though Randolphs voice continued saying things in his head that were real
enough, but not necessary to believe, telling a tale with neither plot nor motive (153). The
reality itself Joel cannot bring himself to believe. As Randolph illustrates in his example of the
Chinese chest, one that opens into a second box, another, still another, until at length you come
upon the last, once every layer has been removed, what unsuspected cache awaits (78)?
Significantly, the truth of the opened box is unsuspected, and accordingly, the reality Joel
uncovers does not match the world of his imagination, and thus his understanding of the world
becomes altered by this realization.
Amidst these new truths and searching for a sense of stability, whether in the form of a
father figure or merely love, Joel searches also for a sense of identity as he enters adolescence.
This change can be charted in the use of the image of a mirror, and the reflections in it,
throughout the text. Randolph claims that a mirror gives reassurance of our identities, or at
least the characters perceptions of identity, and this seems to be reflected in the imagery

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surrounding mirrors (140). Walking through the Landing with Miss Amy the morning of his
arrival, Joels image in the mirror appears like the comedy mirrors in carnival houses; he
swayed shapelessly in its distorted depth (50), and later a formless reflected face [] as if it
were a heat-softened wax effigy (64). The images of Joel in the mirror appear insubstantial and
warped, without any sort of true form or appearance, perhaps reflecting his own distorted sense
of identity. Likewise, in the kitchen window his face reflected transparently, changed and
mingled, and he saw himself, and through himself, and beyond, another insubstantial image
that holds no lasting shape (116). Joel only sees clearly Mr. Sansoms eyes reflected in a small
mirror on his bedside table. However, the eyes are a teary grey, their image twitching in the
tossing light (121-2). Even this image shows no strength and permanence, and Mr. Sansom is
far from a father figure; even he cannot give the sense of self and identity, the sense of place,
which Joel searches for.
Joel still needs a center of strength and identity, but cannot find it in a traditional father
figure. After he runs away with Idabel, he falls sick and stays bedridden while having haunting
dreams that involve the characters of his faraway room and of his life, and the house beginning
to sink into the ground. In this scene, a mirror cracked, symbolic of identity, and the curio
cabinet, the container that keeps safe treasures and secrets, spilled its contents (205). In this
chaotic image, secrets are discovered and there is no longer any reassurance of identity,
reminiscent of the events and emotions Joel has faced. When at last he begins to get well again,
he [studies] his face in a hand mirror, one in which he sees his own face with more clarity,
beginning to pick out the slightest emergence of a true shape to his face, and the softness of
his eyes hardened (207). This is the clearest image Joel has received of himself yet, and in it he
begins to find signs of growth. He feels very happy, simply because he did not feel unhappy;

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rather, he knew all through him a kind of balance (208). In the end, Joel begins to mature and
discover his identity and his own strength, as becomes clear in the events to follow. The morning
after visiting the Cloud Hotel was like a slate clean for any future, and it was as though an end
had come (226). Joel races around with a sense of new-found certainty and comfort in himself,
saying, I am me [] I am Joel, we are the same people, and he is calm in the certainty that,
now, he knew who he was, and he knew that he was strong (228). At last, he has a definite
certainty of his own self, permanence, and identity. Joel started out childlike, with a distorted
sense of self and without guidance, and, finding answers to the mysteries of the Landing, as well
as the stories and fairytales he wanted and expected to clash with reality, and his role as a son
reversed with his father, he develops strength on his own, a sense of self and stability, within
himself.