The Hand That First Held Mine

Content Warning: This section references traumatic childbirth.

Connected to the theme of The Transformative Power of Art, the motif of gazing begins with Innes peering through the hedge to observe Lexie. Gazing is distinct from watching, looking, or seeing in that it is steady and intentional. O’Farrell uses the word “gaze” or “gazing” 26 times in the novel, and that sense of the gaze is present even when the word is absent. Ted watches Elina work through the window of her studio and knows then that she will be okay. Lexie leans out of her window peering into the night in Devon, and she watches London from the window in her first room in London, in Innes’s bedroom, and in her own home. Elina searches for Ted at the seaside by climbing a hill and then surveying her surroundings. This gazing motif represents the eye of an artist on the world, which O’Farrell figures in terms of colors, shapes, and composition rather than individual people. O’Farrell is also subverting the literary trope of the male gaze, which is typically aggressive and rooted in a desire for power. In the novel, the women are often the ones gazing, especially at the world around them or at their sons in admiration and love.