|
In Winona Ryder’s movie, “Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael”, the character of Dinky Bossetti spends the duration of the film searching for a symbolic piece of carpet. She constantly takes little pieces from her father’s carpet store for her arc and it’s menagerie and instructs her animals to keep to their own pieces of carpet without fully realizing her motivation for doing so. It’s their sense of belonging to the animal society which she has created but Dinky herself never quite fits into the human society that she is forced to live in. Her search for a piece of carpet parallels that of the story of Wheaton, the newest canine addition to Dinky’s arc. The scruffy dog has been brought to the arc and is introduced to the other animals (all of whom are used to their surroundings and already have their own pieces of carpet). The dog initially fits in because he is equally unwanted by society but he’s new to the arc and therefore doesn’t quite belong yet. Most importantly, he doesn’t have a name. The scruffy girl has returned to the town and is put in school with the other teens who already know their place in the environment. Dinky is from the town but as is stated by Beannie, “She’s new. Kind of. She’s been here in the summers and all but she’s always getting sent off somewhere on account of her weirdness. So you know how when someone’s new in school you gotta make fun of them for a while to break them in. Well with Dinky Bossetti you really gotta make fun of her cuz she’s Dinky.” Dinky has a name, as the dog does not, but it’s not truly her own; she’s adopted and her search for Roxy Carmichael is her search for her identity. As the story continues, the dog gets trapped in the arc and Dinky desperately desires to get out of Clyde, Ohio. The dog eventually gets a name, Wheaton, and begins to feel comfortable in his surroundings. Dinky thinks she’s discovered her real name (as Roxy Carmichael’s daughter) and begins to feel better about herself because she has this “knowledge.” Wheaton, begins to fit in and thus it is time for him to get his own piece of carpet (a piece that is his and his alone). The irony, however, is that Dinky’s attempt to get Wheaton’s carpet finds her “parents’ having sex on the sample rugs (making a mockery of Dinky’s new found sense of belonging). Since the doctor recently told Rochelle that she could conceive now, the very act that Dinky witnesses is the possible conception of a new child between Les and Rochelle that would have a name and a sense of belonging upon birth that Dinky never had. In the end Wheaton almost gets a new caretaker in the form of Elizabeth, and Dinky almost gets a new mother in the form of Roxy but it isn’t meant to be. Instead Wheaton belongs with his new family and his caretaker Dinky; and Dinky with her new sense of belonging (due to Elizabeth, Gerald, and Denton) belongs with Les and Rochelle. To signify this, Les gives Dinky a new piece of carpet.* The piece she was searching for was placed upon the foundation she never realized she already had.
*It was black ... he “laid” it that morning. HA!
|