Baglady, A. S.

Byatt
A. S. Byatt shows us in this short story how important appearance is for the people and
what happens to a person when someone tries to change her and put her in a situation in which
she does not feel comfortable. To make the reader understand all those feelings, the writer uses
various techniques such as stream of consciousness, thorough descriptions, characteristics that
represent the modern period. Even though it is written in 1998, the short story Baglady depicts
the 19th century and how people really were at that time incredibly well.
Baglady presents us the story of a woman named Daphne Gulver-Robinson that has to
join her husband on a business trip, in order for him to impress his boss. In comparison with the
other women Daphne is quite simple, she has no interest in silk suits and silky legs and
exquisitely cut hair, she would much rather stay at home taking care of the farm. She does not
feel like herself when she is surrounded by all those other wives, it is obviously that she feels
inferior. Even though she tried making herself look presentable, she is conscious that she is
older than most of them, and dowdier.
As we enter more and more into the story we can easily notice that the stream of
consciousness is mainly used in order to express all the emotions that are taking over Daphnes
mind and body. As she goes inside the mall she gets overwhelmed with all the shops and the
people there. For a woman who lives a modest and quiet life at a farm, the rush, the incredible
noise, becomes too much, in this hive she completely loses her mind. As the two hours that she
has to spend there go by, she becomes more and more confused and lonely. Daphne goes into the
shops buying random objects, not because she would need them, but because she has to fill her
time with something and also because that is the reason everyone is there. At the end, she

realizes that the time flew by too fast and that the plane might be gone already. She manages to
find a bathroom and as she looks in the mirror she sees a horrifying image. When she is found by
the police, Daphne cannot find her purse and her identification acts, so she is considered to be
what she fears most: a poor person.
This short story deals with a realistic interpretation of the beginning of the modern era:
the hectic style of life, how appearance is more important than anything else, fear of everything
that is new. It presents a cruel and honest image of the society at that time. Though the reader
cannot be entirely sure that this is how things really work, considering that the action can be seen
only from one point of view, that of Daphnes, which makes the narration quite subjective.
I believe that A. S. Byatt succeeds in showing the reader, through Baglady, a glimpse of
the modern age at its beginning. He makes the reader be a part of that world through Daphnes
eyes and by using the stream of consciousness he can also make us feel all the emotions that the
main character felt. In just a few pages we can see, feel and we can understand how people at
that time coped with the world around them.