The Spider Motif in Self-Portrait with Nothing: Entanglement, Secrets, and the Web Between Characters
The Spider Motif: An Overview
The spider motif in Self-Portrait with Nothing operates on two levels: as a literal recurring image and as a structural metaphor. Literally, spiders appear at key moments—a silver spider-shaped earring discovered at a crime scene, and live spiders creeping through the garage where Pepper finds Ula imprisoned. Figuratively, the spider's web mirrors the novel's central concerns: the tangled connections between characters, the secrets that bind them, and the way Ula's alternate selves form a kind of trap from which no one escapes untouched. The motif threads through the narrative, connecting the novel's multiverse premise to its exploration of secrecy and hidden truths.
The Silver Spider Earring: A Crime Scene Clue
The motif first appears in Chapter 2, when Pepper Rafferty examines skeletal remains of a young woman found buried near a pond. Police discovered a silver spider-shaped earring at the scene. The earring is a small, concrete detail that anchors the mystery: it links the unidentified victim to a specific place and moment, and it hints at the web of circumstances surrounding her death. The spider earring is also a piece of jewelry—an adornment—which suggests the victim had a life, a personality, and choices, even as her remains are reduced to forensic data.
The earring's spider shape is significant because spiders are creatures that build webs and wait. The victim, like many characters in the novel, was caught in a web not of her own making. The earring also connects to a broader pattern of insect jewelry in the novel: in Chapter 21, Pepper finds a dead Ula in the crypt wearing earrings shaped like cicadas. The parallel between the spider earring and the cicada earrings suggests a visual rhyme across the narrative—both are small, personal objects that mark a body and hint at a story.
Spiders in the Garage: The Climactic Appearance
The most sustained spider imagery occurs in Chapter 19, when Pepper and Ula Frost wait together in the garage after Pepper has cut Ula free. As they wait for help, spiders appear. Pepper feels one on her shoulder where Ula had grabbed her—a spindly spider, creeping. In another universe, Pepper reflects, she would have been paralyzed with fear, but in this one, she calmly brushes it away.
This moment is crucial for several reasons. First, it shows Pepper's transformation: the woman who would have been paralyzed by fear in another universe is now calm enough to brush a spider away. The multiverse framing—in a different universe—reinforces the novel's central premise that alternate selves exist and that Pepper's current self is the product of specific choices and circumstances. Second, the spider appears immediately after Ula has grabbed Pepper's shoulder, digging her nails in. The spider's touch echoes Ula's grip, linking the spider to Ula herself—a figure who traps, entangles, and leaves marks.
Later in the same scene, Pepper sees another spider moving toward her from the corner of her eye. She apologizes—to whom or what is ambiguous—and puts her head back through the cobwebs to wait. The image of Pepper sitting in cobwebs is striking: she is literally entangled in the remnants of a spider's web, just as she is figuratively entangled in Ula's web of secrets, lies, and alternate selves.
The Tarantella: Spider Bite and Ritual Healing
Pepper's thoughts turn to the tarantella, a folk dance that originated as a ritual healing for women, meant to cure the effects of a spider bite. The reference is layered. On one level, it connects the spider motif to women's bodies and experiences—the tarantella was historically performed by women who believed they had been bitten by a tarantula, and the dance was thought to cure them. On another level, Pepper hears Ike's voice in her head when she thinks of the tarantella, which makes the situation almost bearable. The tarantella thus becomes a point of connection between Pepper and Ike, a small moment of intimacy in a scene of danger and uncertainty.
The tarantella also resonates with the novel's broader concerns about art as a transformative and dangerous force. The dance is a kind of performance, a ritual that transforms the dancer's state. Ula's paintings are similarly transformative—they create alternate selves, alternate worlds. The spider bite that the tarantella cures is, in this reading, a metaphor for the way Ula's art bites those who come into contact with it, leaving marks that require healing.
Cobwebs and Entanglement
The image of cobwebs recurs throughout the garage scene. Pepper sits in cobwebs, waits in cobwebs, and the spiders move through the space around her. Cobwebs are the residue of a spider's activity—the web left behind after the spider has moved on or died. In the context of the novel, cobwebs suggest the lingering traces of Ula's actions: the paintings she left behind, the alternate selves she created, the secrets she kept. Pepper is surrounded by these traces, unable to escape them.
The web metaphor also extends to the novel's structure. The connections between characters—Pepper, Ula, Tilda, Ike, Blue, Scott Morrow, the multiple Ulas—form a web of relationships that grows more complex as the narrative unfolds. Each character is connected to others in ways they do not fully understand, and the novel's revelations often come when a character discovers a hidden connection.
The Spider and Ula: Trapper and Trapped
The spider motif is most closely associated with Ula Frost. Ula is a figure who traps others—she creates alternate selves who are, in a sense, trapped in the worlds she has painted. She is also trapped herself: trapped in the garage by Ula Zero, trapped in her own web of secrets and lies. The spider is an apt symbol for Ula because spiders are both predators and prey, both builders of webs and creatures who can become entangled in them.
Ula's relationship with Pepper is also spider-like. Ula has spent her life protecting Pepper from a distance, sending money, watching from afar. But this protection is also a kind of entanglement—Pepper is caught in Ula's web whether she wants to be or not. When Ula tells Pepper, you took your sweet time figuring out where I was, she is asserting a claim on Pepper that Pepper never agreed to. The spider's web is a trap, and Pepper is caught in it.
This dynamic connects directly to the novel's exploration of mother-daughter relationships and abandonment. Ula's absence from Pepper's life is itself a kind of web—a structure of absence that shapes Pepper's identity. The spider that builds a web and then leaves it is a fitting image for a mother who creates a structure of influence and then disappears.
The Spider and the Multiverse
The spider motif also connects to the novel's multiverse premise. In the garage scene, Pepper reflects that in a different universe, she would have been paralyzed with fear at the sight of a spider. This moment of reflection underscores the novel's central idea: that alternate versions of the self exist, and that the self we are is the product of specific circumstances. The spider is a small, concrete detail that triggers this reflection, making the abstract concept of the multiverse tangible.
The multiple Ulas are themselves a kind of web—a network of selves that are connected but distinct. The spider's web, with its many strands radiating from a central point, is a fitting image for this network. Ula is the center of the web, and her alternate selves are the strands. This connects to the novel's exploration of identity and selfhood: the question of which self is real and which are merely strands in a larger web.
Study Questions
1. How does the spider earring at the crime scene in Chapter 2 establish the novel's central mystery?
The spider earring is the first concrete clue in the novel's investigation. It links the unidentified victim to a specific place and moment, and its spider shape foreshadows the web of secrets that Pepper will uncover. The earring is also a personal object—a piece of jewelry—which humanizes the victim and suggests that she had a life beyond her remains. The earring's spider shape connects it to the novel's broader spider motif, which recurs at key moments throughout the narrative.
2. Why does Pepper's reaction to the spider in the garage differ from what it would have been in another universe?
Pepper reflects that in a different universe, she would have been paralyzed with fear at the sight of a spider. In this universe, she calmly brushes it away. This difference underscores the novel's multiverse premise: alternate selves exist, and the self we are is the product of specific choices and circumstances. Pepper's calm reaction also signals her growth—she has been through so much that a spider no longer frightens her.
3. What does the tarantella reference add to the spider motif?
The tarantella is a folk dance that originated as a ritual healing for women, meant to cure the effects of a spider bite. The reference connects the spider motif to women's bodies and experiences, and it introduces the idea of healing and transformation. Pepper hears Ike's voice when she thinks of the tarantella, which makes the situation almost bearable, linking the motif to intimacy and connection.
4. How does the spider motif connect to Ula's character?
Ula is a figure who traps others and is trapped herself. She creates alternate selves who are trapped in the worlds she has painted, and she is trapped in the garage by Ula Zero. The spider is an apt symbol for Ula because spiders are both predators and prey, both builders of webs and creatures who can become entangled in them. Ula's relationship with Pepper is also spider-like: her protection is a kind of entanglement that Pepper cannot escape.