Once again we find Charles' sympathy focusing on things (his stare at the cracked urn is highlighted twice), and Emily's focusing on people. Observe that Charles is unable to finish the phrase which would have expressed his human feeling, and at that precise moment the sympathetic response in Emily is released, with tears included, as if she understands that he requires her to do his feeling for him (see "the best of my feelings are in your keeping" ). Symbolically, Emily's sunshade represents her own dream-ideal, which falls aside at the full realization of the death, but her dedication to Charles is made under another shade: that of her hat, decorated with roses. Meanwhile, Charles' stressed focus on the urn almost insists aloud on a larger meaning to the prop; it is clearly suggesting to him the first stirrings of his vast ambition of national material reclamation.