Audrey Thomas' "Aquarius" (in Two in the Bush and Other Stories) is a story I frequently teach in first-year college fiction. The class is usually composed of about 60% males and about 40% females. They are young, middle or upper-middle class people of the North Vancouver variety; sometimes quite cute; born in 1966 or something ridiculous; jeans and Adidas—you get the picture. The girls are usually quiet in class if not whispering or giggling, and sometimes seem embarrassed by the guys. But most often they are utterly indifferent to them. Maybe they already have boyfriends. Who knows. Who, for that matter, cares. The story "Aquarius" comes up in about the third week of the semester. Ostensibly, I teach it as an example of how completely point of view can dominate a subject, but I really want them to get a kick out of how the terrible, voracious Erica dominates her wimpy, whining husband. Not that you don't feel sorry for the husband: his beseeching "O Ile leape up to my God / Who pulles me downe?" is the perfect poignant moment in the story, as the former poet and lover watches the whale show at the aquarium. This husband of Erica's is in mid-life crisis. Depressed, frustrated, angry, he mentally vents his rage and disappointment against Erica, whom he blames for his present predicament, making his way from exhibit to exhibit with increasing bitterness. Each new species of fish he encounters reminds him of a correspondingly grotesque aspect of Erica's personality: the Mozambique Mouth Breeder, the Wolf Eel, the Pacific Prawn are inescapable images of "Her strength and his incredible, female weakness." Poor, nameless husband, poor third-person limited "he." The students say, "She's a bitch, an adulteress, a bully." They are disgusted. How could she act in such a way? Why was she so mean? I ask them, "What do we know about her, really? Through whose eyes, mind, memory and imagination is she presented to us?" "The husband's," they reply. What do we know about him?—and given that, might there be some distortion in the view we receive of her? (We are engaged in figuring out "the truth" about fictional characters—never mind that the fallacy of this very pursuit has been subject to the most rigorous and interesting interrogation for the past, at least, twenty years.)

The girls perk up. The boys start flipping the pages of the story, looking for true Erica sins. "Where's Erica?" the narrator wonders, freshly assaulted by the sight of yet another strange species of marine life. He supposes she is flirting with the whale trainer, imagines he hears her laughter, accuses her of mocking his aesthetic values and pursuits. Her physicality overwhelms him; her aggressive vitality oppresses him. Even his ability to write has been stolen by her, and when he does try to write, "he could only dryly mock himself, forsaken merman, and mocking, failed again."

Eventually, someone says, "The guy's a loser." Someone else will try to determine if Erica really has affairs. They all laugh at the Chinese restaurant scene, the narrator/husband gagging, Erica licking her lips.

I once asked Audrey Thomas about the characters in this story. She said she thought they were all pretty disgusting—all except the whale, that is. The whale was the one she really felt sorry for.