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The story has two primary settings: the Hopewell house and the barn. To Mrs. Hopewell, the house is a place of comfort. It symbolizes her wealth, separating her from her tenants, some of whom have been “trash.” It also represents power. It gives her control over her tenants and an elevated social status in her community.
To Mrs. Hopewell, it was a mistake for Hulga to leave home for school. The outside world poisoned Hulga with strange ideas and then sent her home, where those ideas do her no good. Hulga was not strong enough to leave the protection of home again. At home, Hulga receives “the best of care” for her weakened heart. In contrast, Hulga sees the house as a prison. She feels isolated. Leaving home opened her eyes to the real world. Her weak heart, however, forced her return to the “red hills and good country people” she despises. At home, she is not understood; away from home, she could relate to people through shared intellect and interests.
The barn represents rural simplicity. Yet barns also hold hidden dangers. Hulga intends it to be a place of seduction, where she will lose her virginity and take Manley’s. The act, she thinks, will strip him of his religious naivety and enlighten him to the liberating truth of nothingness. Manley also intends the barn to be a place of seduction. He plans to coerce sex from Hulga and steal her wooden leg, a trophy like others he has collected. In the hayloft, Manley becomes aggressively physical. Robbed of her prosthetic leg, Hulga is defenseless against him, suggesting the possibility of a rape or murder if she does not go along. Although Hulga has no trouble getting up into the hayloft, once Manley has stolen her prosthetic, she is trapped there.
