The Getting of Wisdom · Chapter
XV explained
Laura continues to struggle with social expectations and her own feelings of inadequacy, particularly in interactions with boys.
What happens
Laura continues to struggle with social expectations and her own feelings of inadequacy, particularly in interactions with boys. After a failed attempt to converse with a boy at a cricket match, she reflects on her inability to flirt and attract male attention like her peers. She seeks advice from friends Chinky and Maria Morell, but finds their strategies unsatisfying. Laura observes the preoccupation of her classmates with romance and physical appearance, feeling like an outsider who cannot share their single-minded focus on marriage as the ultimate goal after school.
Themes in this chapter
Female Adolescence and Sexuality
Laura's confusion and failure in the 'elementary science' of attracting boys contrasts with her peers' expertise, highlighting the pressures of adolescent sexuality and social performance.
Social Conformity vs. Individuality
Laura feels like a 'heretic' because she cannot share her classmates' single-minded focus on marriage as the goal, emphasizing her struggle between conformity and her own uncertain vision of the future.
Friendship and the Desire for Belonging
Laura seeks advice from Chinky and Maria, but their responses highlight her isolation; she observes her friends' social success with a mix of admiration and repulsion.
Characters to notice
- Laura Rambotham
Struggles with social interactions and feels like a heretic among peers who focus on marriage as the goal after school.
- Chinky
Laura confides in Chinky about boys, but Chinky dismisses them as 'dirty, horrid, conceited creatures.'
- Maria Morell
Offers Laura cynical advice on how to manipulate boys' affections, emphasizing keeping them at a distance.
- Tilly Macnamara
Obsessed with reducing her waist measurement; Laura reflects on Tilly's priorities after the failed visit to Bob's family.
- Bertha Ramsay
Noted for her pride in her physical development and the rounding of her arms and bust.
- Inez
Has a serious admirer and an understanding with a young man; views school as purgatory before paradise.
Key passages
“For this was the goal; and the thoughts of all were fixed, with an intentness that varied only in degree, on the great consummation which, as planned in these young minds, should come to pass without fail directly the college-doors closed behind them.”
Marriage was the ultimate objective that everyone focused on, expecting it to happen immediately after leaving school.
Highlights the societal pressure on young women to marry after finishing their education.
“She could not contemplate the future that was to be hers when she had finished her education, but with a feeling of awe: it was still so distant as to be one dense blue haze; it was so vast, that thinking of it took your breath away.”
Laura viewed her future after school as a vast, mysterious, and awe-inspiring unknown, unlike her peers who saw it as a clear path to marriage.
Illustrates Laura's divergent perspective and her sense of being a 'heretic' among her classmates.