Girls Of Slender Means :: essays research papers

Joanna&8217s and Jane&8217s lifestyles. The Girls of Slender Means by Murial Spark is a novel or so the girls who lived in the May of Teck Club during theyear of 1945. There are many characters involved, but theone&8217s who caught my attention the most are Jane Wright andJoanna Childe. They represent dissimilar aspects of ideas,lifestyles and, also, have different perspectives on the&8220World of Books.Joanna Childe was the daughter of a country rector. Shewas very intelligent, had &8220...strong obscure emotions (8),and &8220...religious strength (165). She was very wellbuild. &8220Joanna Childe was large... (9), &8220... fair andhealthy-looking... (22). She had light shiny hair, dispiritedeyes and deep-pink cheeks. She never used a scrap ofmake-up because she didn&8217t really care about her looks andshe wasn&8217t looking for a husband either.Jane Wright, on the other hand, was very fat and feltmiserable about it. She tried to blame her work for herappetite. &8220...she was mi serable about her fatness andspent much of her clock time in eager dread of the next meal, andin making resolutions what to eat of it and what to leave,and in making counter-resolutions in view of the fact that her work at the publishing firm&8217s was essentially mental,which meant that her brain had to be fed more than mostpeople&8217s (35-36). Unlike Joanna, Jane &8220...was on thelook-out for a husband,... (32) since she was only twentytwo days old.Joanna&8217s and Jane&8217s occupations evolved around theworld of books. However, they had different perspectivesabout it. Jane worked for a publisher and Joanna attendeda school of drama to be a teacher of elocution. Janethought of the publishing business as &8220...essentiallydisinteresting (39), while Joanna chose her professionbecause of her love for poetry. &8220...poetry, especially thedeclamatory sort, excited her and possessed her she wouldpounce on the stuff, play with it palpitation in her mind, andwhen she had got it b y heart, she spoke it forth withdevouring relish (8). Joanna was highly thought of for itand Jane &8220...was considered to be brainy but somewhat belowstandard, socially, at the May of Teck (19). twain women were similar in that they did additionalwork besides the one&8217s mentioned above. Joanna had studentsof her own whom she taught how to speak properly, with noaccent. &8220Joanna&8217s method was to read each stanza herself first and make her pupil repeat it. (21). Jane had severalkinds of &8220...brain-work (41). &8220First and secretly, shewrote poetry of a strictly non-rational order, in whichoccurred, in about proportion of cherries in a cherry-cake, certain(prenominal) words that she described as &8216of a smouldering