A.S. Byatt's Novelle - Baglady

In A.S. Byatt's novelle »Baglady« we are in the far east with a company of British over class-women. They are traveling with their husbands, who are leaders in a big firm. What should they do while their husbands are to business meetings? There is a special program for them, and they are dropped off by a large mall outside the city. Then they can have some fun. But Daphne doesn't know what to do with herself.

Daphne doesn't know what to do. So she goes out of the Mall. On the way she finds some coins, and pig them up. She will find a telephone and call her husband. She finds a telephone and puts the coins in, tap the number of her husband's mobile. It rings.. Now he takes it, she yells "Help me!!" and the phone is going out. She doesn't have enough money. Her husband calls the police and tells them what happened. They promise to do whatever it takes to find her. They can't.

3 months later Daphne's husband is afraid that Daphne is dead. But suddenly he get a call. It's the police from the Mall. They have found Daphne. She is dirty and unkempt. The only thing she has is a bag and a cover with a circle of embroidered fish, red, gold and copper. The police call her a baglady. The police say that Daphne's husband can come and take her home. Few hours later Daphne is home. She is crying. She promises her husband that she will forever be sweet to him. And she apologizes for all the things she had done in her past. And then they lived happily ever after.

The baglady is a woman who runs into conflict. She is a hot and blowzy woman, and her lipstick has bled into the soft skin round her mouth. Hairpins have sprung out, and her nose and eyelids shine.

We are located three places, on a farm, around a breakfast table in the Far East, and in a luxurious and mysterious shopping mall. In the text we found out that Rollo is director. Opposite Daphne represent a more old fashioned way of life, and therefore you can't compare Daphne's home and life to the other wives.

Baglady begins in medias res, and we jump directly into the events without an introduction. The story is divided in three, around the table, a flashback and then inside the shopping center. The flashback is the summery of what happened back home. It is an opened ending, because we have many things that remains unanswered. We don't know if Daphne gets out of the mall and we don't know what happened with her possessions.