The tent where Chris sleeps during his sojourn in the community is a symbol of his restless, unsettled status. An apparatus used by soldiers on the front line, the fabric shelter is the opposite of the sturdy brick homes other characters take refuge in and expresses Chris’s opposition to peacetime values like constancy and stability. Instead of restricting the owner to one location, the tent can be pitched wherever action and adventure are taking place. It can also be removed easily and disappear without a trace whenever a location or its inhabitants becomes troublesome. This is the case when Chris learns that his fiancée is pursuing him in order to force him to honor his promise of marriage.

For Edie, Chris’s tent becomes a symbol of whirlwind romance and disorder. It is in that tent, which she finds so lovely with “that smell of grass and hot tent cloth with the sun beating down on it” (70), that Edie escapes her position of dutiful servant and styles herself as Chris’s passionate love. The tent allows Edie a portion of the adventurous life that Chris is so fond of. In a society of sexual conservatism, the tent provides a honeymoon-like

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