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Anna Wulf
Janet is Anna and Willi Rodde’s young daughter, who is born in 1947 and grows up during the course of Anna’s notebooks and Free Women. Unlike Anna, Janet is utterly happy and conventional; she is seemingly unscarred by her mother’s emotional difficulties and tumultuous relationships. Without a father figure, Janet becomes close to Tommy and Ivor, but Anna always wonders what would happen if she remarried—when she was seeing Michael, he and Janet always competed for her attention. Janet becomes Anna’s source of identity and daily motivation—Anna frequently has to summon a happier version of herself so as to not let Janet down, and when Janet insists on going to boarding school (and even wearing the optional uniform, which Anna never would have done), Anna finds herself devastated, with nothing to do and no clear sense of time or purpose. Anna is anxious about Janet’s future—she hopes that men will treat Janet better than she has been treated and that Janet will not turn out emotionally broken like Anna did.
Janet Wulf Quotes in The Golden Notebook
The The Golden Notebook quotes below are all either spoken by Janet Wulf or refer to Janet Wulf. 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:
).
The Notebooks: 2
Quotes
15th September, 1954
A normal day. During the course of a discussion with John Butte and Jack I decided to leave the Party. I must now be careful not to start hating the Party in the way we do hate stages of our life we have outgrown. Noted signs of it already: moments of disliking Jack which were quite irrational. Janet as usual, no problems. Molly worried, I think with reason, over Tommy. She has a hunch he will marry his new girl. Well, her hunches usually come off. I realized that Michael had finally decided to break it off. I must pull myself together.
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Free Women: 3
Quotes
She was thinking: If someone cracks up, what does that mean? At what point does a person about to fall to pieces say: I’m cracking up? And if I were to crack up, what form would it take? […] Anna, Anna, I am Anna, she kept repeating; and anyway, I can’t be ill or give way, because of Janet; I could vanish from the world tomorrow, and it wouldn’t matter to anyone except to Janet. What then am I, Anna? — something that is necessary to Janet. But that’s terrible, she thought, her fear becoming worse. That’s bad for Janet. So try again: Who am I, Anna? Now she did not think of Janet, but shut her out. Instead she saw her room, long, white, subdued, with the coloured notebooks on the trestle table. She saw herself, Anna, seated on the music-stool, writing, writing; making an entry in one book, then ruling it off, or crossing it out; she saw the pages patterned with different kinds of writing; divided, bracketed, broken — she felt a swaying nausea; and then saw Tommy, not herself, standing with his lips pursed in concentration, turning the pages of her orderly notebooks.
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Janet Wulf Quotes in The Golden Notebook
The The Golden Notebook quotes below are all either spoken by Janet Wulf or refer to Janet Wulf. 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:
).
The Notebooks: 2
Quotes
15th September, 1954
A normal day. During the course of a discussion with John Butte and Jack I decided to leave the Party. I must now be careful not to start hating the Party in the way we do hate stages of our life we have outgrown. Noted signs of it already: moments of disliking Jack which were quite irrational. Janet as usual, no problems. Molly worried, I think with reason, over Tommy. She has a hunch he will marry his new girl. Well, her hunches usually come off. I realized that Michael had finally decided to break it off. I must pull myself together.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Free Women: 3
Quotes
She was thinking: If someone cracks up, what does that mean? At what point does a person about to fall to pieces say: I’m cracking up? And if I were to crack up, what form would it take? […] Anna, Anna, I am Anna, she kept repeating; and anyway, I can’t be ill or give way, because of Janet; I could vanish from the world tomorrow, and it wouldn’t matter to anyone except to Janet. What then am I, Anna? — something that is necessary to Janet. But that’s terrible, she thought, her fear becoming worse. That’s bad for Janet. So try again: Who am I, Anna? Now she did not think of Janet, but shut her out. Instead she saw her room, long, white, subdued, with the coloured notebooks on the trestle table. She saw herself, Anna, seated on the music-stool, writing, writing; making an entry in one book, then ruling it off, or crossing it out; she saw the pages patterned with different kinds of writing; divided, bracketed, broken — she felt a swaying nausea; and then saw Tommy, not herself, standing with his lips pursed in concentration, turning the pages of her orderly notebooks.
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