Miss Benson's Beetle

Over the course of the novel, Joyce explores how shared experiences inspire and strengthen friendship. Joyce initially portrays Margery and Enid as too different in personality and opinion to ever become friends, and Margery even rejects the idea of a relationship between them when she refuses to even interview Enid for the role of her assistant. The two women’s education, social class, and outlook on life diverge sharply, emphasized by Joyce’s descriptions of their physical dissimilarity. Margery recognizes herself in the caricature her students have drawn of “a lumpy old woman” in a “baggy suit” with a nose like a “potato” and hair like “a mad bird’s nest” (11). By contrast, in Enid’s first appearance she is first described as a “blond bombshell” wearing “a bright pink two-piece travel suit that accentuated her round bust and hips” with “nails […] painted like juicy sweets” (41).

Joyce immediately establishes Enid as Margery’s foil, but the physical differences between them are only the beginning. Further discord looms because of their personalities. Margery is reserved. Enid is a non-stop talker. Despite one brief stab at romance, Margery keeps men at bay. Enid is sexually liberated, especially by the social standards of 1950 England.