Polk house

The Polk house becomes the setting for Rebecca’s attempt to confront Rita Polk about the abuse of Leonard Polk, and for the basement confinement that makes Eileen an accomplice. Its ordinary domestic rooms give way to a cellar where Rebecca has restrained Rita and where Eileen is brought face to face with the consequences of Rebecca’s intervention.

Setting and Entry

Rebecca tells Eileen that she has Rita tied up downstairs in the Polk house. She later explains that she entered the home the previous afternoon and confronted Rita about her and her husband’s actions, drawing on what Leonard had told her. The confrontation turns Rita’s residence into the site of an effort to make her answer for her role in the family’s history.

The Cellar

To reach Rita, Rebecca slides the chain from the cellar-door lock and switches on a light by pulling a string. The stairs descend to a basement with a dirt floor and a ceiling pipe; an old reel lawn mower, a broken wooden chair, and a pile of dismantled wood are among the few objects there. Rebecca has tied Rita’s wrists with the belt of her housecoat and secured them to the pipe. The sparse surroundings offer few furnishings or ordinary signs of domestic comfort, while the confinement makes the cellar a place of immediate danger for Rita.

Narrative Significance

Eileen follows Rebecca down the stairs carrying a gun, her face covered by a scarf. Although she regards herself as miscast in the role of conspirator, she describes becoming calm in the basement and steadying herself there. That contrast makes the cellar more than a hidden part of the house: it is the point at which Eileen’s emotional attachment to Rebecca becomes participation in Rebecca’s plan. The house’s movement from an apparently private residence to a site of coercive questioning also exposes the gap between Rebecca’s stated aim of justice and the means she has chosen.