XIX explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Loneliness and the Search for Connection

  Hannah finds relief and happiness in her friendships with Wilfrid, Ruth, and Mr. Samson, and she craves connection with Mr. Blenkinsop, though she feels her lack of beauty and self-pity hinders her.

• Gender Roles and Female Agency

  Hannah reflects on the constraints of being a woman, noting that Mr. Samson understands her as a human being first, not just a female. She also muses on the importance of noses in women's destiny, contrasting with the relative unimportance of men's features.

• Appearance vs. Reality

  Hannah enjoys the contrast between the careful face she shows Robert Corder and the one she can show Mr. Samson, and she reflects on how her own refusal to appear sorrowful prevents Mr. Blenkinsop from seeing her as a subject for pity.

Characters to notice

• Miss Hannah Mole

  Hannah feels a subdued jealousy of Uncle Jim but resolves to be happy. She visits Mr. Samson, enjoys his company, and uses her imagination to create stories about Mr. Blenkinsop. She also reflects on her own appearance and the role of noses in destiny.

• Ruth

  Ruth appears happier and less quarrelsome with Ethel, thanks in part to Uncle Jim's influence. Hannah is making a party frock for her as a surprise.

• Mr. Samson

  Mr. Samson is a disreputable-looking old gentleman who has traveled widely and distrusts parsons. He provides Hannah with a sane, humorous perspective on life and relationships, and appreciates her for her humanity rather than her gender.

• Robert Corder

  Robert Corder is beginning to think of Hannah as the right woman in the right place, though Hannah finds his view irritating. He is contrasted unfavorably with Mr. Samson.

• Mr. Blenkinsop

  Mr. Blenkinsop visits Hannah and reveals his fundamental disagreement with Robert Corder's doctrines. He is also the subject of Hannah's imaginative stories, and she suspects him of a complicated love affair.

• Ethel Corder

  Ethel is less quarrelsome with Ruth and seems more peaceful and enthusiastic about the club, though Doris has left it for her young man.

Key passages

• “It was pleasant to see Ruth looking happier and Hannah subdued a sort of jealousy of Uncle Jim, whose advent had succeeded where her own presence had failed, and she determined to be happy too.”

  Hannah felt a twinge of jealousy that Uncle Jim had made Ruth happy where she could not, but she resolved to enjoy the moment.

  Hannah's emotional response to Uncle Jim's positive influence on Ruth.

• “Mr. Samson, clearly, had not deliberately thought this out, nor did he express his opinions: like his red, puffy face and his wicked old eyes, they were the fruit of life as he had lived it, and though the fruit was ripe, it was not rotten.”

  Mr. Samson's worldview was not intellectual but the natural result of his experiences, which were worldly but not corrupt.

  Description of Mr. Samson's character and philosophy.

• “She had no modesty in Robert Corder’s sense which implied a perpetual and restraining consciousness of her sex. She was not anxious to forget it; she was as feminine as anyone else and she had suffered too much from being treated as a machine, but she was a human being more abundantly than she was a woman, and this was what Mr. Samson understood.”

  Hannah rejected Robert Corder's view of modesty as constant awareness of being female; she valued being seen as a full human being, which Mr. Samson did.

  Hannah's internal critique of gender expectations.

• “In her attempts to attract Mr. Blenkinsop’s attention, with sprightliness, intellect and ignorance, she had omitted the one method which would have been successful.”

  Hannah realized that her efforts to win Mr. Blenkinsop's notice through wit and intelligence had failed because she never showed him her vulnerability.

  Hannah's reflection on her failed strategy with Mr. Blenkinsop.