Small Pleasures

The novel’s women characters are expected to perform their gender by inhibiting their own exploration of desire and pleasure. Jean, though freer than her mother, has lived in a repressed society: “A lifetime of quiet watchfulness” has “convinced her that the truth about people was seldom to be found in the things they freely admitted. There was always more below the surface than above” (34). Jean sees this pervasive self-negation in the men with whom she works, the women she interviews and passes on the street and, of course, within herself.

Jean disallows indulgence in cosmetics and clothes—Jean is practical and not lavish. As the novel opens, Jean spills veal blood on her woolen skirt, which makes her furious because it was such an excellent skirt for riding her bike. Similarly, she feels that “cosmetics had always made her look painted and clownish, and they were now consigned to her drawer of treasures, to be admired as artifacts but never displayed” (180). Jean’s emphasis on efficiency rather than luxury is not complete, however: Though Jean doesn’t wear makeup, she still holds onto products she describes as “treasures”—language that makes clear that the desire for sensual enjoyment cannot be fully eradicated.