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Chapter 6: Annabel
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Nine Days, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Unconventional Family Structure
First Impressions, Perspective, and Personal Growth
Gender, Stigma, and Shame
Mothers and Sons
The Far-Reaching Effects of War
Summary
Analysis
Jean is stressed and already late for work. Kip and Francis are asking her too many questions, and she can’t find Connie, who should be making breakfast for them. The heat oppresses her and her head throbs, making it difficult to “keep a civil tongue.” Next door, the Hustings are mourning the death of their son Jack. News of his death just arrived last night. Kip tries to reminisce about his fondness for Jack, but Jean doesn’t have time to hear it. Kip also reminds her too much of her late husband, and some days she secretly can’t stand the sight of him. The pain is so great that it builds into a fury inside her, half at Kip and half at her husband for dying in such a stupid, drunken manner and leaving her with the children. She’d envisioned motherhood to be sweet and ideal, not chaotic, stressful and lonely.
Jean’s narrative depicts motherhood as a difficult burden to bear, far greater than one’s children can ever understand. Although Jean’s character is never completely redeemed and she remains a rather wretched figure, her narrative does serve to explain where her bitterness and anger come from and help the reader to see that the one-dimensional depiction of her in Kip’s narrative does not tell the whole story. This is exemplified most by the revelation that Jean’s dislike of Kip is due in large part to the fact that he reminds her of her dead husband, and simply seeing Kip causes her a mixture of pain and fury.
Themes
Jean finds Connie sitting against a tree in the backyard, hands on her stomach. She looks terrible, and she’s weeping for Jack. Jean is unsympathetic. She tries to get Connie up, since she needs to be at work, but Connie looks her in the eye and tells her she’s pregnant. Jean assumes she’s pregnant by Mr. Ward, her employer, that it’s a ploy to force him to marry her, and Jean thinks Connie is a “wonderful clever girl” and hugs her. Jean is already fantasizing about how they’ll move from Richmond to Hawthorn, they’ll be wealthy and taken care of. When Connie tells her Mr. Ward isn’t the father, Jean assumes she must’ve been raped, which is terrible, but at least they can force the father to marry Connie.
Although Jean does labor to keep her family together and alive, her initial belief that Connie is a “wonderful clever girl” for seducing Mr. Ward into impregnating her not only reveals her own doubles standard toward Connie’s sexual conduct, but also reveals that she herself is conniving and selfish. Rather than sympathizing with her daughter or fretting for the future, Jean’s first thought is how much she’ll personally benefit, suggesting that her character is rotten at its core. Connie’s weeping for Jack hints that Jack is indeed the father of her child.
Themes
Connie states marriage isn’t possible either, but insists that she wants to keep the baby. Once again, Jean is furious with her husband for dying and leaving her with this mess. Connie mentions that there are convents out in the country where single mothers can go to live and give birth, but Jean thinks it a terrible idea. When she sees that Connie is sick, she surmises that she must be less than six weeks pregnant, which means she still has time to get rid of it. Connie refuses this idea, but Jean is insistent, arguing that it’s simply how the world works.
Once again, Connie’s unexpected pregnancy and decision of whether she should abort it or not run parallel to Charlotte’s own pregnancy and dilemma. However, although Connie wants to keep the pregnancy, she faces more social stigma and has less choice in the matter than Charlotte does, suggesting that while it is a similar situation and even has similar stigmas attached, many aspects of an unexpected pregnancy are far better for women in the modern era than women in Connie’s day.
Themes
Jean makes a long speech to Connie about the shame she’ll carry for the rest of life if she keeps the baby, calling her a “slut” and accusing her of being a “loose woman” with “no morals” and a “bastard” child. Connie is indignant, but when Jean argues that it shames not only her but her brothers, especially Kip, Connie softens. Jean hopes that someday Connie will have the chance to have children the right way, with a husband, but for now she knows a “respectable woman” on Victoria Street who can provide an abortion and solve this problem. But they have to go today.
The shame that Jean tells Connie she’ll face as a single mother seems grotesque by modern standards, again suggesting that women today face less stigma—though some of it still remains—around sexuality. The fact that Connie agrees to have the abortion only when she realizes her pregnancy will bring Kip shame, as well, suggests that her concern for him and his future outweighs her concern for herself.
Themes
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Inside, Francis is about to go to school. Jean asks Kip if he’s ever seen Connie go out with a boy, and Kip says he hasn’t, though seems to be withholding something. Jean gives him a long list of errands to run so that the house will be empty when they return, and she can say Connie is sick with a bad flu all week.
The fact that Kip seems to be hiding something suggests that he has some idea of whom Connie may have been seeing, though this will not be revealed until the final narrative.
Themes
With the boys out of the way, Jean takes Connie and all the money she’s saved over the years and leads her to Victoria Street. Connie is extremely ill and “reluctant, but without the strength to fight.” As they walk, Jean realizes Connie probably wishes she could just kill herself instead, Jean feels that way herself quite often, but “it’s a coward’s way out.” They arrive at a nice, clean dress shop and enter. Jean tells the clerk that they are there to see the store owner for a “personal matter.” The store owner arrives and mentions that it’s been a long time since Jean has needed their services.
Although Jean seems spiteful and neglectful to Kip, Jean’s wish that she could just end it all but determination to keep on living again suggests that motherhood is a greater burden on her than Kip could ever realize. Though far from perfect, Jean seems to be doing the best she can. However, the store owner’s comment implies that Jean has had an abortion herself, yet she is still angry at Connie for going through the same thing, which suggests that she is hypocritical and overly-harsh toward her children.
Themes
The store owner ushers them to a closed-off dressing room in the back of the store and charges a high price, all the money that Jean’s family has saved. Jean pays and helps Connie lay on the bench. Connie is again resistant, stating that her baby is all she has of its father, but Jean presses her to proceed. An old seamstress with calloused hands comes in to prepare for the operation. They give Connie a tall shot of whiskey, and as she watches her daughter drink it down, Jean reflects on the pity of her daughter trusting her to take care of everything, just like she was a small child again. Jean is not allowed to be there during the procedure, so she steps out of the dress shop, leaving Connie to the care of the old woman.
The price of the operation and the unsanitary, unprofessional conditions in which Connie must have her abortion in greatly contrasts with the medical abortion available to Charlotte, which is safe, clean, affordable. This contrast again suggests that women in Charlotte’s era enjoy far more freedom and better access to birth control measures than women in the past. Although Jean heavily pressures Connie to have the abortion even though she does not want it, Jean’s inner narrative suggests she is only doing what she thinks is best for their family.
Themes
While she waits, Jean goes home to do chores while the house is empty, and she realizes it’s the first moment of solitude she’s had in years. She reflects on motherhood, which is a gift in that while your children are alive in the world you can never feel truly alone. On the other hand, thinking of the Hustings mourning their lost son, it also brings the greatest pain in the world when something you were supposed to protect and take care of dies, even more so than when a husband dies, since they should be able to take care of themselves. She returns to retrieve Connie.
Once again, in spite of Kip and the reader’s view that Jean seems a poor mother, her narrative argues that she is doing the best that she can with her limited means. While this does not excuse her mean spirit, selfishness, or favoritism, it does go a long way in fleshing Jean out as a full character and helping the reader to sympathize with her crushing burden of responsibility.
Themes
Jean finds the dress shop emptied for the evening and the old woman and Connie waiting outside. Under her dress, Connie has a towel to stop the bleeding fastened by a belt around her waist. She is pale. As Jean helps her home, she notes that her daughter feels lighter than before, and wants to get her in bed and settled before her brothers get home.
Connie’s lightness is likely not due to the fetus removed from her womb, but rather a figurative reflection of the burden of responsibility that has been lifted from her shoulders by the abortion, since she no longer has to face the prospect of life a single mother.
Themes
However, when they are nearly there, walking up a side street, Connie doubles over in pain and slumps against the wall, sliding down to sit on the ground. Jean sees a dark stain spreading down Connie’s dress and thinks she must have sat in a puddle, until she catches the metallic scent and realizes it is blood. Lots of blood. Jean tries to pick her up, but she’s “dead weight” now, unmanageable, though still conscious. Connie mumbles that she was going to have the baby, she’d already decided and wrote to the father, they’d be there waiting for him when he returned. Now it’s sitting in a biscuit tin on the ground. Jean runs off to find help.
Connie’s abortion and subsequent hemorrhage are doubly tragic, since if she had kept the baby as she’d wanted to, she would also still be alive and healthy, even though she faced a very difficult prospect as a single mother. Connie’s apparent shift in Jean’s arms from a light load to dead weight reflects that Connie’s death will be a greater burden on Jean’s conscience and character than if Connie had lived, had the baby, and faced the social stigma that came with it.
Themes
When Connie was a child, although everyone says not to leave a baby alone in a bath or they might drown, Connie never did. Jean would tell her to sit up straight and not fall into the water, then leave to do chores and return later and Connie would still be there, sitting up as told, playing in the water. Jean trusts Connie. When she leaves her to go find help, and finds none on the empty street, that what Jean thinks about. “That’s the only reason I leave her.”
Jean’s memory of Connie’s ability to take care of herself even as a child seems to be Jean’s way of justifying the fact that she left Connie sitting on the street while she went to find help. This suggests that Jean is haunted by guilt over the decision to leave her daughter where she sat, bleeding out.
Themes
