Quarter 3 blog 3

In the latest section of reading, I have noticed the theme of how self image effects relationships emerge. It starts with the bumbling Kit Neville, who cannot seem to keep himself positive in the face of Paul’s easy conversations with Elinor on a bike trip. Kit, who struggles to move his large body up a gentle hill, envies Paul’s fitness and good looks, comparing his own body to Paul’s and drawing his own negative conclusions. As he puffs along, he thinks “What a clown I am...he was perpetually on the lookout for disparaging remarks even when they came from himself” (Barker 104). He also goes on to admit he is constantly “...putting himself into situations where he showed to poor advantage and then, instead of learning from his mistakes and avoiding those situations, doing it again and again and again” (104). This shows that Neville, when he is hard on himself, takes it an extreme that leads to a sour temper and a mind quick to jump to conclusions.

Elinor is another victim of this vain thinking, even though she tries to keep a though exterior, she also wonders why she can’t be like everyone else. When we first meet her, she is full of spunk and determination, trying to overcome the oppression of her mother by chopping off her hair and going to art school. In front of her watchful mother, though, she is reduced to a self-conscious and pouting schoolgirl, worrying about her outfit, thinking “-I’m happy as I am. –Are you? I don’t think you are...More to the point, what was she going to wear tonight? She had the one evening dress....”(Barker 117). This mature woman reduced to dressing up to impress her peers shows that her self image is horrible and ruins the confident image the other characters had seen her as.