Letters

In the second half of The Price of Salt, Highsmith spends a great deal of time portraying the characters through indirect means of communication. We learn more about Abby, Danny, Carol, Terry, and other characters through the letters, telegrams, and phone calls they make. It is interesting that Highsmith utilizes this plot device because it further shows the divide among all of the characters. In the most intense and perhaps frightening part of the novel, the characters cannot even talk face-to-face. It also teaches the reader more about each person and how they communicate when there is a step between them and the other person. For example, Terry wrote Carol that brief Christmas card that was impersonal while being so significant. Later, Terry’s communication becomes much more personal and emotional, as she writes to Carol, “I mean you are here as much as I can bear you to be, not being here…” (244). The leap from the Christmas card to the letter shows Terry’s emotional growth throughout the novel. It is also interesting the just as she ran away before and did not tell anyone, she ran this time and sent gifts. I know it was a planned trip, but Terry clearly has changed as a person. In the beginning of the novel she moved within the same region and still went into hiding, she was most likely too scared to move too far but too ashamed to stay in the same location. Later on in the novel, she is free enough to be more open about her whereabouts. Additionally, whom Terry sends gifts and letters to says a great deal about her emotional state at that point in the novel. She specifically does not correspond with Richard, who is forced to learn about her location from Danny. This was likely heart breaking for him, as Richard was the only person Terry decided to keep in touch with the first time she fled. Even though Terry was trying to find herself through this trip, I felt it was a little cruel of her to just drop him like that, after all of the time and love she invested in him.