Irene's Constant Gender Lens


I think my biggest concept that I looked into during this book was that Irene was constantly looking at people with a gender lens. First, when talking about being attracted to her husband, Brian, she says that she loves his skin but also that he has a certain masculinity about him. After that, there were numerous examples of this gender lens such as when she says that Clare is intelligent or smart in a “purely feminine way”. In situations like these, I stopped to wonder: why does Irene constantly define people into their gender? Why does she insist on keeping them in a box and labeling them in this way? After thinking about it, I think it’s because she is so insecure about her femininity. She is constantly worried that Brian will leave her. In class we discussed that the only reason she cares about him leaving is so he can support her. On more than one occasion, Irene’s vanity is shown due to her frequent worry about her appearance. She also suggests that Clare uses her sex appeal to get what she wants in life and to get ahead. This was said with a twinge of jealousy. She often focuses on Clare’s beauty both inside and out. This made me think, maybe she simply just feels inferior as a woman. She is surrounded by people that make her feel less than she is. It is also implied that she thinks Brian and Clare are having an affair, further confirming her insecurity as a woman and if the affair is true, she isn’t able to even keep her husband and the father of her children with her and faithful. Irene does a great job at masking her insecurities and putting on face in public but as a reader, we are able to see that she’s wildly insecure in her feminine self and it can be assumed that this is part of the reason she is so obsessive about Clare, especially in the beginning of the novel.

Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 1, 2017 at 3:38 PM

    I think this is an interesting perspective. I wonder if this is related to how Irene feels about race. She seems to disapprove of Clare passing, and the idea of passing as a whole, and yet she passes sometimes, if to a lesser degree than Clare. But she also seems to feel superior not only to Clare because she doesn’t intentionally pass all the time, but she also seems to feel superior to people with darker skin when she describes not finding them attractive while at the NWL dance. I think it’s possible that she builds this ego of superiority in her racial identity to make up for her insecurities about gender, as you describe. It could also be why she prioritizes motherhood, and looks down on Clare for not being as concerned about Margery; if this is an area Irene feels she succeeds in, then she can hold that over other women even when she feels inferior.

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