Girls Of Slender Means :: essays research papers

Joanna&8217s and Jane&8217s lifestyles. The Girls of Slender Means by Murial Spark is a novelabout the girls who lived in the May of Teck Club during the class of 1945. There are many characters involved, but theone&8217s who caught my attention the most are Jane Wright andJoanna Childe. They represent different aspects of ideas,lifestyles and, also, have different perspectives on the&8220 military personnel 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, blueeyes 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 matt-upmiserable about it. She tried to blame her ply for herappetite. &8220...s he was miserable about her fatness andspent much of her time in eager dread of the abutting 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 publisher&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 years old.Joanna&8217s and Jane&8217s occupations evolved around the existence 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 quivering in her mind, andwhen she had got it by heart, she spoke it ahead 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). Both 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 herselffirst and make her pupil repeat it. (21). Jane had several(prenominal)kinds 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 words that she described as &8216of a smouldering