The Baglady Interpretation and Analysis

The Baglady

A.S. Byatt's Baglady, is a short-story published in Elementals (1998). The short-story deals with great themes and conflicts like identity, culture gap and relationship.

"Baglady" is about a girl named Daphne, who is accompanying her husband Rollo on a business-trip to the Far-East. Although it has been told that the wives are traveling with their husbands because of the risk of AIDS, then it becomes obvious that the intention with this jaunt is to portray Rollo as a family guy. The wives goes to a luxurious shopping mall (the Good Fortune Shopping Mall), in the mall Daphne shops alone, and can't get out. Besides that, all of her possession disappear.

It is both interesting and a bit confusing, what the author is trying to tell. I will in this essay try to analyze and interpret the short-story and find a connection, themes and messages.

About the narration, then it is a third-person personal narrator, who's knowledge is limited. The narrator is linked to Daphne and it is from her point of view we are seeing the events.

We are located three places. On a farm, around a breakfast table in the Far East, and in a luxurious and mysterious shopping mall. I don't know if I can call Rollo and Daphne's farm upper-class, but we know 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.

I will characterize the surroundings around the breakfast table as upper-class, and it is also described with impression. "It is beautifully laid with peach-colored damask, bronze cutlery, and little floating gardens in lacquered dishes of waxy flowers that emit gusts of perfume" (page 9 line 7-10). The Good Fortune Shopping Mall is a place only for prosperous persons, and therefore upper-upper-class.

I can't find an argument for that it should not be present time (1998) - quite the contrary. It is a relatively new phenomenon that the Far East has build up such a luxurious community.

"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.

Daphne Gulver-Robinson is the main-character and the protagonist. She is a round character because she is well described and she is "exposed" to a development. She is a farmer-wife and she is used to stay home and take care of the animals. She is not very young, the text says that she is older and dowdier than the other wives. For the trip she has lost ten pounds, and got her nails manicured (page 9 line 7 from bellow). She god seated tweed and stout shoes, and in addition to that her hair is in a bird-nest bun. She had really tried to make herself more attractive. Indirectly we know that Daphne really tries to fit in. Her Husband has less power and she is older than the other wives. She is therefore against the odds. She does not feel comfortable in their company and it is important to emphasize that she is accompanying her husband against her will and in spite of herself.

I looked Daphne up on the internet and I found out that Daphne is a Greek mythological character; daughter of the River God Ladon. She refused Apollon's