“Pretty Ice” by Mary Robison is the story of a failing relationship between Belle, the narrator, and Will, her fiance. Belle, who can’t drive despite working on a doctorate, makes the decision to break up with Will based on several factors she “calculates” in her head. Will, a botanist, has just failed to secure a grant and that subtracts from Belle’s desire to marry him.

The story focuses on two central symbols—one is the superficial nature of things and people, and the other is on calculation. The two ideas are related to one another in how they are presented. Belle, despite thinking Will, is superficial, is ironically making her decision not to marry him off of her superficial determinations.

Belle’s family ran a dance studio, and they were wealthy before he father killed himself. Will, her fiance, is not like her father—he is not wealthy, and he is getting fat. Despite their history, and Will’s seeming wisdom in explaining what the “pretty ice” means on their drive to find a motel, Belle rejects him because he is not living up to her expectations of what a man should be—rich and good looking.

Belle expresses her distaste for Will when he first arrives. She describes him as,

He seemed to have put on weight, girlishly, through the hips, and his face looked thicker to me, from temple to temple.

Will, in putting on weight, appears more feminine—not handsome like her father. Along with him putting on weight, he also loses his grant. She gets angry at him for spending seven years on something superficial but doesn’t recognize that her concerns about him are superficial.

The story uses the setting to explore this idea further when he offers the idea that beneath the pretty snow and ice are dying plants that will make a dreary Spring. Belle rejects this idea, instead choosing to think only of the surface, not what lies beneath. That rejection illustrates Belle’s nature in the story, always looking closely at the surface and refusing to go deeply into anything.