The Colosseum: A Symbol of Endurance and Fragility in Beautiful World, Where Are You

What Is the Colosseum?

The Colosseum is the ancient Roman amphitheatre built in the first century CE. In Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, it appears as a real-world location that Alice Kelleher and Felix Brady visit during their trip to Rome. The monument is not merely a tourist backdrop; it becomes a charged space where the novel’s central tensions—between past and present, beauty and ugliness, intimacy and isolation—are made visible.

Where Does the Colosseum Appear?

The only direct scene set at the Colosseum occurs in Chapter 13. After a deeply uncomfortable argument in their hotel room (triggered by Felix’s viewing of violent pornography and a series of painful confessions), Alice and Felix leave the hotel and walk to the ancient ruin. They reconcile there, and later that night share a consensual, intimate conversation about sexual fantasies. The Colosseum thus brackets the most emotionally raw sequence in their relationship.

Beyond this single appearance, the Colosseum is part of Rome’s wider symbolic landscape, which Alice describes in an email to Eileen Lydon (Chapter 12). In that message, Alice writes that “the instinct for beauty lives on, at least in Rome”—a line that directly echoes the Colosseum’s stubborn physical presence. The ruin is never named in that email, but it is the city’s most obvious testament to beauty persisting through decay.

How Does Its Meaning Change?

Initially, the Colosseum seems to belong to the world of tourism and ancient history—a place Alice might have visited on a previous trip or seen in photographs. But the narrative never presents it as a grand spectacle. Instead, the walk to the Colosseum is quiet and unremarkable; the focus is on the characters’ internal states, not the monument’s architecture.

The meaning shifts as the scene unfolds. For Alice, the Colosseum represents continuity with a civilisation that survived its own collapse. Earlier in her email correspondence, she and Eileen discuss the Late Bronze Age collapse and the loss of writing systems like Linear B (Chapter 8). In that context, the Colosseum stands for the opposite: a fragment of the ancient world that has not been lost. It is a physical reminder that some structures—both literal and relational—can outlast the forces that threaten them.

For Felix, the Colosseum carries a different weight. He has never been to Rome before, and his response to the city is sensuous: he professes admiration for Bernini’s Proserpina (Chapter 12). The Colosseum, like that sculpture, invites a bodily, tactile engagement. But Felix also brings his own history of moral failure to the site. The reconciliation that occurs there is not a clean forgiveness but a fragile truce; the Colosseum’s pitted walls and uneven ground mirror the roughness of their bond.

By the end of the chapter, the Colosseum has become a symbol of endurance that is not triumphal but quiet. It does not promise redemption. It simply says: this still stands.

Character Connections

Theme Connections

Crisis and Meaning

The Colosseum is a charged site for the novel’s central question: can meaning exist in a world that seems to be falling apart? Alice and Eileen’s letters discuss “general systems collapse” (Chapter 6) and the end of civilisation. The Colosseum, built on the blood of gladiators and animals, is itself a monument to systemic violence—yet it still draws visitors who feel awe. Alice and Felix’s walk there does not resolve the crisis; it merely asserts that some things endure, even without clear purpose.

Love and Vulnerability

The scene at the Colosseum follows a brutal argument about sex, consent, and personal history. The walk is a fragile first step toward reconciliation. The ruin’s exposed, windswept openness matches the vulnerability Alice and Felix show each other later that night. As Eileen’s letter about love and vulnerability suggests, true intimacy requires a willingness to be seen in one’s damaged state—just as the Colosseum reveals its broken arches and worn stone.

Friendship and Isolation

While the Colosseum belongs to Alice and Felix’s story, its emotional resonance depends on the friendship between Alice and Eileen. Without Eileen’s meditations on beauty and historical loss, the Colosseum might appear merely as a landmark. Instead, it becomes part of the novel’s argument that friendship can sustain meaning even when larger systems fail.

Class and Capitalism

The Colosseum was a venue for free spectacles funded by the state—an early form of entertainment capitalism. In the novel, Felix’s awkwardness at Alice’s literary event (Chapter 9) mirrors the Colosseum’s history of public display. Felix is uncomfortable with Alice’s fame and the class divide between them; the Colosseum, once a stage for imperial power, subtly reinforces the idea that spectacle and hierarchy are ancient, not modern, inventions.

Study Questions

1. Why does the walk to the Colosseum happen directly after Alice and Felix’s argument? Answer: The argument strips away their defences: Felix admits to sex with a minor and a teenage pregnancy, Alice admits to bullying. The Colosseum, as a ruin that has survived centuries of violence and decay, offers a space where broken things can coexist without needing to be fixed. It allows them to share silence and physical proximity before they speak again.

2. How does the Colosseum connect to the novel’s treatment of history? Answer: In her letters, Alice worries that civilisation has already ended and that she is “standing in the last lighted room before the darkness” (Chapter 12). The Colosseum contradicts that fear: it is a fragment of a civilisation that did end, yet it remains beautiful and meaningful. The ruin suggests that even after collapse, something of value can be left behind.

3. What does the Colosseum reveal about Felix’s character? Answer: Felix is often portrayed as cynical and physically present rather than intellectually engaged. His appreciation of Bernini’s Proserpina shows a latent sensuality, and his willingness to walk to the Colosseum—a place he likely knows only from movies—indicates a curiosity about beauty. The Colosseum becomes a rare moment where Felix’s defences lower, allowing the reader to glimpse his capacity for awe.

4. If the Colosseum is a symbol of endurance, does it also symbolise something fragile? Answer: Yes. The Colosseum is slowly crumbling; its survival is not guaranteed. In the novel, Alice experiences “daily pain from stress” (Chapter 29) and fears her own mental collapse. The Colosseum’s fragility mirrors the precariousness of Alice and Felix’s new relationship—and of all human connections in a world where the “instinct for beauty” must compete with ugliness and entropy.