Holes are a prominent aspect of Arthur as a character, they are both visually and metaphorically represented. Lou's holes are entirely metaphorical and often physically filled in or so vast as to be only tenuously defined as holes:
- The circular face of the watch - time as a hole
- The circular lens of the camera - sight as a hole
- The pit of dirt the plant sits in - growth as a hole
- The darkness of night - the hole that is Earth
Arthur and Lou share some specific holes:
The Apartment
The living space as a hole, the hole which most represents themselves and their state of being, the hole into which others are invited.
Trauma
Their brains are physically pitted by trauma, but those in Arthur's brain act as eyes (watchful, reacting to light and dark) and those in Lou's act as mouths (consuming, voracious).
Emotion
Arthur's are like a well - a finite, narrow trench where something seeps in to be stored; a precarious place that can be poisoned or drained, infected or infested. Lou's appear as a small, shallow hollow but what you are seeing is a peephole painted over. Something paces behind a door.
Obsession
Arthur's is involuntary, directionless, he cannot tame or wield it. Lou's is focused, deliberate, he knows exactly how to utilize it. Ultimately, both are powerless in the face of it. Their world revolves around the bottomlessness of it, the impossibility of filling it.
Death
This is where they are exactly the same: their fixation on death and dying. Death is the eponymous hole, it is endless and empty. They are eternally on the edge of becoming holes themselves - Arthur is aware of the danger he poses to himself, while Lou is either unaware of or deeply unaffected by the danger of embodying himself. And it is through murder that they both tear new holes in the world.