She escaped the bounds of her normal life but left behind a wrecked home and a daughter to be raised in a difficult household. Speaking truth about the unshackled power of dragoning women and their impact on society is only met by repression and punishment as the country as a whole tries to forget its past.ĭragoning becomes the dominant metaphor for the radical freeing of women in all their power, but Alex’s life is conditioned by the example of her Aunt Marly. Gantz, who pays a heavy price for daring to record and publicize the inescapable realities of dragoning, to the point of losing his career and being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the Congress. Gyzinska, a librarian who feeds Alex’s insatiable curiosity and guides her at crucial moments of her life. Beatrice grows under Alex’s care and becomes an irrepressible free spirit, with a socially dangerous interest in dragons. She leaves behind her baby Beatrice who becomes Alex’s ‘sister’, as all mention of the girl’s parents is suppressed. It is Marly who one day steps out of her skin as a dragon, devours her obtuse husband and flies away. Her sister, Marly, is as big, brawny and full of life as Alex’s mother is small, slight and quiet. There is her ailing mother who has hidden away her great gifts in mathematics to have children and live under the rigidly silent and mostly absent husband who believes women should stay in the home. All the characters are sharply drawn and seen mostly through Alex’s eyes as she narrates the greater part of the novel.
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