Miss Peabody's Inheritance: Analysis of Major Characters
"Miss Peabody's Inheritance" explores the lives of its major characters, centering on Dorothy Peabody, a timid and unremarkable woman in her fifties who yearns for a more fulfilling life beyond her mundane job and caregiving duties. Her correspondence with the Australian novelist Diana Hopewell serves as a catalyst for Dorothy's journey of self-discovery, leading her to adopt elements of Diana's adventurous persona. Despite this newfound ambition, Dorothy's obsession with Diana's life and work spirals into mental instability, culminating in her taking over Diana's unfinished narrative after learning of the writer's death.
Diana Hopewell, a once-vibrant novelist now confined by illness, finds solace in her friendship with Dorothy, using their correspondence to maintain a sense of purpose. The dynamics between characters like Amy Peabody, Dorothy's demanding mother, and Nadine Brewer, a condescending neighbor, further illustrate the themes of dependency and social hierarchy. Other characters, including Pam Truscott and Mr. Bains, represent different facets of life that Dorothy admires but struggles to attain. Through the interactions and developments of these characters, the narrative delves into complex themes of identity, aspiration, and the impact of fictional narratives on real lives, highlighting the blurred lines between admiration and obsession.
Miss Peabody's Inheritance: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Elizabeth Jolley
First published: 1983
Genre: Novel
Locale: London, England, and Australia
Plot: Fiction of manners
Time: The 1980's
Dorothy Peabody, a plain and shy unmarried woman in her fifties who works as an office clerk in London. She is friendless and without either intellectual or physical distinction. Dorothy's existence is divided between mundane secretarial work and caring for her invalid mother. She longs for fulfillment and finds it in her correspondence with a female Australian novelist. Inspired by the apparently exciting lives of Diana Hopewell and her characters, Dorothy begins to expand her own life in minor ways, such as sampling brandy, buying colored stockings, and expressing new emotions. Her obsession with the writer and her work results in a growing mental unbalance as Dorothy confuses the characters' lives with her own. She is placed on forced leave by her company and finds Diana dead when she reaches Australia. Dorothy's continued fixation on Diana's unfinished novel leads her to take Diana's place at the nursing home to complete the story of the characters who have become so real to her.
Diana Hopewell, a cultured and once active but now invalid novelist who, in her loneliness, seizes on Dorothy's fan letter as an opportunity for friendship. Her correspondence contains not only portions of her new novel but also a fantasy of her own, in which she pretends she is still an independent and capable farm owner. Diana finds comfort in her fictional persona and in Dorothy's admiration. Even in death, Diana has an impact on Dorothy: After Dorothy discovers the truth about her friend, she assumes Diana's position and work.
Amy Peabody, Dorothy's demanding invalid mother. Unable to leave her bed, Mrs. Peabody finds her only satisfaction in whining to her harried daughter and in reminiscing with her friend, Mrs. Brewer. Her death releases Dorothy from years of servitude and allows the latter to visit Australia.
Nadine Brewer, an elderly widowed neighbor and Mrs. Peabody's best friend. Her smug altruism affords her the right, she believes, to belittle Dorothy.
Pam Truscott, a single woman in her forties who works with Dorothy. Miss Truscott's well-preserved physique, her practiced joie de vivre, and her illicit affair with Mr. Bains are naïvely admired by Dorothy as the marks of someone who enjoys an exciting and full life.
Mr. Bains, a middle-aged partner in the firm where Dorothy works. His conventional sense of propriety allows him an affair with Pam Truscott but not the embarrassment of retrieving an intoxicated Dorothy from the police station.
Arabella Thorne, a woman in her sixties who is the domineering headmistress of a girls' school and the major character in Diana Hopewell's manuscript. Under her pretentious and cultured exterior, Miss Thorne hides a sensual nature, one that delights in overindulgence in alcohol, food, and social events when in the company of her friends. Gwendaline Manners, however, innocently cuts through Miss Thorne's self-restraint with her adolescent attractions and naïve affection, and the headmistress finds herself caught between parental and amorous feelings for her pupil.
Miss Edgely, Miss Thorne's incompetent and empty-headed assistant and friend. Petty and impractical, Miss Edgely is in constant need of supervision and soothing by Thorne and Snowdon. Her jealousy of Thorne's affection for Gwenda leads her into a number of foolish and troublesome escapades on the foursome's European vacation, which in turn only serve to diminish her in the headmistress' eyes.
Miss Snowdon, Miss Thorne's sensible and equally cultured lifelong friend. She takes time out from her career as a nurse to accompany Thorne and Edgely on vacation. She is Edgely's opposite, able to take Thorne's involvements with both Edgely and Gwenda good-naturedly and without any sense of threat.
Gwendaline Manners, a friendless and ungainly sixteen-year-old pupil at Thorne's school who is ignored by her newly remarried father. She responds to Thorne's offer of a trip to Europe with a doglike devotion, casting the headmis-tress in the role of a substitute mother. Despite Thorne's attempts to provide her with ambition and a cultural education, Gwenda blossoms only under the attentions of the pragmatic Mr. Frome, with whom she shares a desire for family life and whose proposal she accepts as a means to satisfy that desire.
Debbie Frome, an attractive and precocious pupil at Thorne's school whose understanding of the sensual both unnerves and attracts the headmistress. Her willing acceptance of her classmate as a stepmother is indicative of Debbie's worldly wisdom.
Mr. Frome, a highly successful but uneducated man who understands that Gwenda is really best suited to be a wife and mother. His proposal to Gwenda frustrates Thorne's attempts to play Pygmalion to her pupil.