Dec 26, 2009

Big Blonde | Themes

Beauty
The title of the story identifies Mrs. Morse in terms of her physical appearance and highlights the significance of this issue. The narrator in no place describes her as beautiful. To the contrary, many descriptions of her body, such as her ‘‘flabby white arms splattered with pale tan spots,’’ are negative. However, she does meet a certain standard of attractiveness. When she was in her twenties she worked as a model. ‘‘It was still the day of the big woman, and she was then prettily colored and erect and highbreasted.’’ This suggests that she once...