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Richard Portmain
In Free Women, Richard’s second wife, Marion, starts the book as a miserable, pathetic alcoholic, presumably driven to drink by Richard’s unabashed affairs and her relative confinement at home with her three children. Richard spends much of the book trying to figure out what to do about Marion—of course, he never considers being faithful or attentive to her—and, in her misery, Marion turns to Molly and Anna for advice, since she admires their “freedom.” Marion’s greatest transformation comes after Tommy’s suicide attempt, when she befriends him, stops drinking, and resolves to become an activist. She ends up enthusiastically divorcing Richard and, at the end of the book, running her own dress shop. Since she does not appear in Anna’s notebooks, it is unclear whether she is a fictional construction or a real person that Anna knows. Regardless, she exemplifies the plight of married women confined to the domestic sphere by unloving and emotionally insensitive husbands, but also the possibility of reclaiming one’s independence and happiness.
Marion Quotes in The Golden Notebook
The The Golden Notebook quotes below are all either spoken by Marion or refer to Marion. 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: 1
Quotes
Five lonely women going mad quietly by themselves, in spite of husband and children or rather because of them. The quality they all had: self-doubt. A guilt because they were not happy. The phrase they all used: “There must be something wrong with me.” Back in the campaign HQ I mentioned these women to the woman in charge for the afternoon. She said: “Yes, wherever I go canvassing, I get the heeby-jeebies. This country’s full of women going mad all by themselves.” A pause, then she added, with a slight aggressiveness, the other side of the self-doubt, the guilt shown by the women I’d talked to:
“Well, I used to be the same until I joined the Party and got myself a purpose in life.” I’ve been thinking about this — the truth is, these women interest me much more than the election campaign.
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Free Women: 4
Quotes
He smiled, as dry as she, and said: “Yes, I know what you mean, but all the same it's true. Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me. That’s what people really want, if they're telling the truth.”
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Get the entire The Golden Notebook LitChart as a printable PDF.
Marion Quotes in The Golden Notebook
The The Golden Notebook quotes below are all either spoken by Marion or refer to Marion. 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: 1
Quotes
Five lonely women going mad quietly by themselves, in spite of husband and children or rather because of them. The quality they all had: self-doubt. A guilt because they were not happy. The phrase they all used: “There must be something wrong with me.” Back in the campaign HQ I mentioned these women to the woman in charge for the afternoon. She said: “Yes, wherever I go canvassing, I get the heeby-jeebies. This country’s full of women going mad all by themselves.” A pause, then she added, with a slight aggressiveness, the other side of the self-doubt, the guilt shown by the women I’d talked to:
“Well, I used to be the same until I joined the Party and got myself a purpose in life.” I’ve been thinking about this — the truth is, these women interest me much more than the election campaign.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Free Women: 4
Quotes
He smiled, as dry as she, and said: “Yes, I know what you mean, but all the same it's true. Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me. That’s what people really want, if they're telling the truth.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
