6. Do you care about the characters (full question inside)

[Jen]

6. Do you care about the characters? Do you like (or dislike) them? How real (or well-developed) do they seem to you?

[Diane]

I really like the narrator and I felt like I was in her head. The husband seemed to really care about her but he dismissed her requests quite often. Maybe a sign of the times that women couldn't make their own decisions?

[Kristel]

I was never drawn to the characters much. I didn't like the husband much.

[Pip]

I cared about Jane and willed her to get better and stand up to her husband, but, of course, this is very much from my point of view so much later than the time when the story took place. I also felt that the husband was depicted in a positive, if ironic, way as a product of his time.

[Jan]

I really didn't like John from the off. He reminded me of the kind of men I dislike - those who belittle women for holding different opinions to their own, and who expect women to shut up and get on with supporting them in their great manliness.

I found Jane sympathetic. She is clearly intelligent and frustrated by her husband's unwillingness to accept this intelligence in her. Her observations on her environment and her persistence in recording her thoughts both interested me as she seemed unaware that her actions were in defiance of her husband.