Ice

You knew this was coming: Possession's water imagery wouldn't be complete if it didn't include the frostier side of H20. What happens when water gets below freezing? You get ice, ice baby.

If you loved Disney's Frozen, chances are you're going to love Possession too. Throughout the novel, A. S. Byatt draws on some of the same fairy tales that inspired the adventures of Anna and Elsa, and even though there are no epic power ballads in the novel, it definitely knows a thing or two about "kingdoms of iceolation".

Maud Bailey is the character who's most clearly associated with frostiness in the novel. Like Elsa in her frozen tower of ice, Maud feels safest and most comfortable when she maintains a comfortable distance from others. In Maud's case, that distance is particularly important when it comes to people who seem likely to treat her as a sexual object or "possession."

Maud's iciness is developed through multiple character descriptions that emphasize her cold, white exterior. Fergus Wolff tells Roland Mitchell that Maud "thicks men's blood with cold" (3.59); her apartment is outfitted in shades of white; her voice and demeanor are repeatedly described as being cold or contemptuous; and attention is frequently drawn to the whiteness of her body. The most vivid image of Maud's iciness comes in the novel's final chapter, as she and Roland finally discuss their feelings for each other:

"When I feel—anything—I go cold all over. I freeze. I can't—speak out. I'm—I'm—not good at relationships."

She was shivering. She still looked—it was a trick of her lovely features—cool and a little contemptuous. Roland said,

"Why do you go cold?" He kept his voice gentle.

"I—I've analysed it. Because I have the sort of good looks I have. People treat you as a kind of possession if you have a certain sort of good looks. Not lively, but sort of clear-cut and –"

"Beautiful." (28.168-72)

As we know from earlier scenes in the novel, Maud identifies closely with Christabel LaMotte, who treasured the solitude that she and Blanche Glover had created together and described it using the metaphor of a pure white egg. Maud also knows that people sometimes see her as being "[i]cily regular," and "splendidly null"—like a beautiful but barren landscape of snow (28.189).

Maud's iciness is a defense system, but it doesn't always make her happy. That's why, in the end, she chooses to let Roland melt her heart.