The Wives of Bath

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The Wives Of Bath

Author	Susan Swan
Language	English
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf (US), Granta (UK)
Publication date	1993
Publication place	Canada
Preceded by	The Biggest Modern Woman In The World; The Last Of The Golden Girls
Followed by	What Casanova Told Me

The Wives Of Bath is a fictional novel by Susan Swan, inspired by her own childhood experiences in a Toronto boarding school in the 1960's.

Plot Introduction

Mary 'Mouse' Bradford is sent to boarding school by her unsympathetic father and jealous stepmother. There, she meets the rebellious Paulie, and together they embark upon a quest to discover what, fundamentally, separates men from women.

Explanation Of The Novel's Title

The protagonist, Mouse, alludes to Chaucer's tale of The Wife Of Bath when she declares: "...I knew how Jack [her date for the evening] must see me and every other girl and woman at my school because we were all Wives of Bath...because Bath Ladies College was only a fiefdom in the kingdom of men."

Plot Summary

Part One

Mouse introduces herself, and mentions her involvement in Paulie's "weird, Napoleonic act of self-assertion", though she doesn't specify exactly what is was that Paulie did, or even who she is. Mouse speaks of her distracted father, Morley, and her critical stepmother, Sal. She also tells the reader of the hump she has in her left shoulder as a result of a childhood bout of polio, which developed into kyphosis. Mouse has named the hump Alice, after her dead mother, and says that the hump is like a friend to her. Throughout the novel, Mouse's conversations with Alice provides comic relief and exposition on the story's dark events. In the second chapter, Mouse pauses the narrative and recounts details from Paulie's trial, which she continues to do sporadically throughout the novel. It becomes clear that Paulie committed a murder of some kind.
Mouse recalls how she was sent to the boarding school in Toronto- Bath Ladies' College- because her father had "an unfortunate inferiority complex about bringing up females" and because its headmistress, Vera Vaughan, was a distant cousin of Morley's. Mouse is nervous, keenly aware of her shyness and her physical shortcomings, and is bewildered by the strange atmosphere of the old-fashioned school. She meets the friendly janitor, Sergeant (who is a dwarf) and Paulie's brother, Lewis, whom she later catches shaving in her new dorm bathroom. Mouse meets Tory and Paulie that evening, immediately warming to the friendly Tory and taken aback by Paulie's brash manner. It is clear that, different as they are, the two have a very close friendship. Tory tells Mouse that Paulie's brother, Lewis, is her boyfriend, and that they are in love.
Mouse settles quickly, but not comfortably, into the school, picking up the lexicon and the general consensus of opinion regarding the staff of the school amongst the students. The intensity of her fixation with John F. Kennedy is evident in the long, familiar letters that she sends him on a regular basis.
To both Mouse and Paulie's chagrin, Tory breaks her leg in a field hockey accident and is sent home for the rest of the winter term. Tiring of Paulie's volatile behaviour, Miss Vaughn orders Paulie to 'walk off' her frustrations at the school every evening after class, and assigns Mouse to accompany her. The two form a kind of bond, and Paulie soon reveals to Mouse that she doesn't have a brother named Lewis; it is actually her, masquerading as a boy, and that she has everyone fooled, even Tory. She takes Mouse to the shrine she has made to the 1933 film King Kong, and sets Mouse a series of bizarre 'masculinity tests' to prove that she, too, can be a boy.

Main Characters

Mary Beatrice 'Mouse' Bradford

Deep-thinking, shy and intelligent. Mouse's adoration of her father, Morley, and her idolization of John F. Kennedy suggests that she, like Paulie, longs for the freedom and status of becoming a man. However, when presented with confrontational situations that test her 'masculinity', Mouse's 'feminine' instincts (i.e. passivity, fear and obedience) take precedence.

Pauline 'Paulie' Sykes/Lewis

Rebellious, troubled and wild. Paulie resents the status females have been given by society, and constantly challenges one to consider exactly what it is that makes a man characteristically 'masculine', (i.e. strong, self-assured, and resourceful). Paulie finds a freedom in masquerading as a boy. Though mainly unsympathetic and at times even violent toward Mouse, Paulie harbours an idealistic and devoted love for Tory. The horrific murder Paulie commits at the climax of the novel acts as the denouement for the story.

Victoria 'Tory' Quinn

Kind, beautiful and vulnerable, Tory could be described as being acceptably 'feminine'. Though not as subversive as Paulie, Tory is rebellious in her own way. She frequently breaks school rules, and does not respond seriously to discipline when she doesn't manage to evade it. Most importantly, the nature of her relationship with Paulie prevents her from being described as a 'normal' girl of the time. Mouse questions, toward the end of the novel, whether Tory was aware that Lewis and Paulie were the same person; there is evidence for both arguments, but the intensity of their relationship suggests that she was.

Other Characters

• Vera 'The Virgin' Vaughan
• Mrs Peddie
• Ismay Thom
• Morley Bradford
• Sal Bradford
• Sergeant

Major Themes, Symbols & Motifs

• Gender issues and stereotypes
• Repressive atmosphere of the 1960's
• Forbidden love
• Freudian/Psychoanalytic theories of sexuality and gender identification
• King Kong as a masculine hero

Allusions/References To Other Works/Authors

• Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
• Charlotte Bronte's criticism of Jane Austen
• The character and suicide of Virginia Woolf

Literary Significance & Criticism

• "At once courtroom drama, boarding-school gothic and adolescent confession, The Wives Of Bath is a thoroughly modern tale of shifting sexualities. It is also extremely funny. Swan writes with rare verve and flair and has a good line in honesty and penis jokes- the kind that move you to tears and somehow end up making you, like her touching heroine, respect women." ~ Sunday Times

• "A human, humorous and poignant account of growing up female in a world where, as Swan puts it, 'it was just more fun to be a guy'." ~ Claire Messud, Guardian

Allusions/References To Actual History & Current Science

• The assassination of President John F. Kennedy
• The Holocaust

Awards & Nominations

• Shortlisted for the 1993 Guardian Fiction Award
• Shortlisted for the 1993 Ontario Trilliam Award
• Winner of the 1993 Toronto Arts Council Award for Fiction

Film/TV Adaptations

• The Wives of Bath was made into the independent film Lost and Delirious in 2001, starring Piper Perabo as Paulie, Jessica Paré as Tory, and a young Mischa Barton as Mouse.

• Lost and Delirious was directed by Léa Pool, and adapted for the screen by Judith Thompson.

• Susan Swan has recently written a foreword for the new edition of The Wives Of Bath praising Lost and Delirious, though she states that it is, superficially, "vastly different" from the original novel.

• The last names of the main characters differ in Lost and Delirious to those in The Wives Of Bath; Paulie's was changed from Sykes to Oster; Tory's from Quinn to Moller; and Mouse's from Bradford to Bedford.

• Lost and Delirious was listed in the Official Selection for the Sundance Film Festival in 2001.

Sources/References/External Links/Quotations

• [1] Official Susan Swan site
• [2] Read the new foreword for The Wives of Bath

Luceo 12:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)