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Leonard Slank
Clara Bates is Joe Bates’s wife and Marian’s best friend from high school and college. In high school, thin, blonde Clara was admired for her idyllic, “perfume-advertisement femininity.” In college, Clara excelled academically, but her commitment to her studies was waylaid when she married Joe and became (accidentally) pregnant with their first child. When the narrative begins, Clara has given up school entirely as she waits for the birth of her third baby. Marian reflects that Clara seems “helpless” in her own family, the endless stream of pregnancies a sign that she has lost agency over her own body. Implicitly, Clara’s lack of control over her own life represents Marian’s fears about the loss of self that marriage and motherhood might entail.
Clara Bates Quotes in The Edible Woman
The The Edible Woman quotes below are all either spoken by Clara Bates or refer to Clara Bates. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 4
Quotes
The babies had been unplanned: Clara greeted her first pregnancy with astonishment that such a thing could happen to her, and her second with dismay; now, during her third, she had subsided into a grim but inert fatalism. Her metaphors for her children included barnacles encrusting a ship and limpets clinging to a rock.
[…] [Clara’s] own body seemed somehow beyond her, going its own way without reference to any direction of hers. I studied the pattern of bright flowers on the maternity smock she was wearing; the stylized petals and tendrils moved with her breathing, as though they were coming alive.
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Chapter 27
Quotes
“I worry about her a lot, you know,” Joe continued. “I think it's a lot harder for her than for most other women; I think it's harder for any woman who's been to university. She gets the idea she has a mind, her professors pay attention to what she has to say, they treat her like a thinking human being; when she gets married, her core gets invaded…”
“Her what?” Marian asked.
“Her core. At the center of her personality, the thing she's built up; her image of herself, if you like.”
“Oh. Yes,” said Marian.
“Her feminine role and her core are really in opposition, her feminine role demands passivity from her…”
Marian had a fleeting vision of a large globular pastry, decorated with whipped cream and maraschino cherries, floating suspended in the air above Joe's head.
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Clara Bates Quotes in The Edible Woman
The The Edible Woman quotes below are all either spoken by Clara Bates or refer to Clara Bates. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 4
Quotes
The babies had been unplanned: Clara greeted her first pregnancy with astonishment that such a thing could happen to her, and her second with dismay; now, during her third, she had subsided into a grim but inert fatalism. Her metaphors for her children included barnacles encrusting a ship and limpets clinging to a rock.
[…] [Clara’s] own body seemed somehow beyond her, going its own way without reference to any direction of hers. I studied the pattern of bright flowers on the maternity smock she was wearing; the stylized petals and tendrils moved with her breathing, as though they were coming alive.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27
Quotes
“I worry about her a lot, you know,” Joe continued. “I think it's a lot harder for her than for most other women; I think it's harder for any woman who's been to university. She gets the idea she has a mind, her professors pay attention to what she has to say, they treat her like a thinking human being; when she gets married, her core gets invaded…”
“Her what?” Marian asked.
“Her core. At the center of her personality, the thing she's built up; her image of herself, if you like.”
“Oh. Yes,” said Marian.
“Her feminine role and her core are really in opposition, her feminine role demands passivity from her…”
Marian had a fleeting vision of a large globular pastry, decorated with whipped cream and maraschino cherries, floating suspended in the air above Joe's head.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
