Throughout the novel, Karti employs a range of symbols and motifs to reinforce the themes of jealousy, love, and identity. The recurring image of the pomegranate, a fruit often associated with Georgian culture, serves as a potent symbol of fertility, abundance, and the cyclical nature of life. The author also explores the motif of mirrors, reflecting the fragmented and distorted nature of human perception.
Georgian culture is famously oral and emotional: toasts at supra (feast), polyphonic singing, epic poetry. Jealousy in Georgian literature, from Vazha-Pshavela to Nodar Dumbadze, is often fiery and cathartic. But Robbe-Grillet’s jealousy is cold, quantitative, and obsessive — closer to the silent mach’ari (evil eye) of village legend. In Georgian folklore, the mach’ari is not an emotion but a force: a look that damages. The jealous husband in La Jalousie is the embodiment of the mach’ari turned inward. He watches his wife’s every gesture as if counting crimes. La Jalousie Qartulad