 The book opens with a dream sequence in which a sculptor worships before a flower symbolizing beauty . The sculptor struggles to capture his vision of beauty in a sculpture of an idealized woman . In his artistic pursuits he neglects the reality around him and the toll the Depression of the 1930s has taken on the people whose paths he crosses — a neighbor who is beaten by her husband , violent social protest , jingoistic nationalists , and drunkenness . He is engulfed in flames when he returns to his studio trying to flee it all . 
