Clara Bates Quotes in The Edible Woman
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.
“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.
Clara Bates Quotes in The Edible Woman
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.
“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.
