the fireplace: an homage or a burial shrine?

When asked to examine the lengthy description of the Ricketts' fireplace one experiences a sensory overload consistent with the construction of the rest of the novel. This could, like the rest of these kind of instances, be serving to throw the reader off., but I think, in this particular case, Agee is giving us this description to emphasize another point. I noticed that almost every item mentioned are, or involve, photographs of other people doing exciting things, or living better lives. I think the pictures of attractive and delicious foodstuffs are most telling because that connects on a very primal level of necessity and does the most to highlight their deficiencies. The photos are of attractive people, which the Ricketts', plagued by mediocre hygiene and lives of toil, are decidedly not. The people are consuming high end products like Coca Cola and using Lysol disinfectant, which the Ricketts' certainly can not afford.

It is clear that the Ricketts' chose to surround the focal point of their house with images of a life that they will never be able to live, the question now is "why?" There are two options which I believe can explain this phenomena. The first possibility is that they are simply paying homage to that sort of lifestyle and have come to terms with their station in a lower class. This kind of behavior is consistent with people worshipping celebrity not because they are jealous of their success or wish in any way to gain their exact position, but simply because the glamour makes them feel better by proxy. This is the healthiest explanation, because it would suggest a makeshift comfort, which is something that Agee tries to highlight, I feel.

That is, however, not the option which seems most correct here. Upon reading the description and then flipping back to actually look at the picture of said fireplace, it did not most closely resemble a middle school girl's room plastered with celebrity photos, as the description suggests, but instead a burial shrine saturated with the images and symbols of something that is dead. It seems like a dumping ground for the ambition of the young during the transition to the apathy of the old. These pictures are reminders of things that they will never have, they may look on them nostalgically, like one does when looking at a picture of a dead relative, but never hopeful for the resurrection of that person.