Attachments by Judith Rossner

First published: 1977

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot:Bildungsroman

Time of work: The 1950’s to the 1960’s

Locale: Los Angeles, New York City, and Bootsville, New Hampshire

Principal Characters:

• Nadine, the protagonist and narrator
• Dianne Shapiro, a lawyer and Nadine’s best friend
• Amos and Eddie Smith, Siamese twins and the husbands of Nadine and Dianne, respectively
• Carly, the daughter of Dianne and Eddie
• Marianne Story, a professor at Bard College

Form and Content

Attachments is the story of a woman’s attempt to shape order out of chaos and her eventual realization of self. Nadine represents cognizant women who tried to find substance beneath the fabrications and superficialities of society in the 1950’s and early 1960’s.

As a child, Nadine tries to find containment in the nucleus of her family. Her search is futile, however, as her mental life is several levels deeper that of her parents. A former college coach and a Miss America contestant, her father and mother are bewildered by the spectacled, shrill-voiced daughter who has entered their lives, and the child, in turn, is puzzled by her parents’ preoccupation with appearance and their glamorous pasts. As the parents are enamored of each other, it seems to Nadine that she is excluded from their intimacy. Feeling abandoned, she develops a fascination for Siamese twins—two persons who will never be alone. Since Nadine cannot be a Siamese twin, she contrives to meet Amos and Eddie Smith, becoming the mistress of both and later the wife of Amos.

Nadine also tries to absolve her loneliness through her friendship with Dianne, a fifteen-year-old high school senior who eventually marries Eddie Smith. Nadine makes the mistake, however, of placing Dianne on a pedestal, deeming her gifted friend vastly superior to herself. Part of Dianne’s attractiveness is her place of origin: the East Coast. In Nadine’s imagination, life in the East is structured by rules, unlike life in the West, where anything is permissible; if she moved East, she would find both order and containment. After moving to New Hampshire, however, she finds no more peace or stability than she knew in California. Moreover, her ability to see things as they are soon enables her to realize that her and Dianne’s marriage to Siamese twins is a farce—especially since Nadine loves the idea of the twins more than Amos himself—and that aside from Dianne’s success in academic studies and the practice of law, Dianne is fragile and incompetent. The novel moves chronologically toward the climax, when Nadine realizes that despite her high intelligence, Dianne has not lived up to her potential. This realization, which removes Dianne from the pedestal, allows Nadine to refuse the assumption of any more responsibility for her sister-in-law’s child or household. Shortly after she stands up to Dianne, Nadine faces the fact that she does not love her husband, who has been surgically separated from his brother. Consequently, she decides to stop depending on others for meaning and to carry on the rest of her life by herself—alone, but independent.

Context

Through both Nadine and Dianne, Rossner calls attention to injurious middle-class ideologies concerning women, particularly during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Nadine falls victim to the consensus that women can find fulfillment in marriage and motherhood. Hence, she marries both times because getting married is the thing to do; in neither case does she experience love. She finds satisfaction in being a mother but feels restless and empty once the children are older and more independent; the state of motherhood cannot fulfill her when she has no one to mother.

Dianne’s postpartum depression reflects a growing phenomenon of her time. According to a study conducted in the 1950’s, approximately one in three new mothers suffered depression or psychosis following childbirth. The study indicated a common factor among these mothers: All had discontinued their educations below the level of their potential. Although Dianne, a graduate of both college and law school, has acquired a level of education commensurate with her ability, she ceases performing to potential when she decides to become a full-time mother; in other words, she goes against her grain in giving up the work she loves. Dianne’s one acknowledgment of her true nature occurs when she remarks to Nadine that she would have the energy to perform on a job, if only she could get out of the house. Rossner seems to be saying that unhappiness stems from denying individual needs, in favor of conforming to what society deems one should desire.

Some critics claim that Rossner’s novels resemble those of the nineteenth century, in that her heroines are searching for structure and self-fulfillment. Unlike such heroines, however, Rossner’s protagonists are neither rich nor impoverished; members of the middle class, they conduct their searches within the realm of ordinary life. Moreover, they do not find perfect contentment in their relationships with men. In short, Rossner departs from the pattern of the traditional romance by refusing to portray love and marriage as the gold at the end of the rainbow. Her works show that while matrimony may afford satisfaction, the satisfaction is tenuous; women can discover true meaning in their lives only by becoming complete and independent human beings. Thus, Rossner establishes a new model for women’s literature in the late twentieth century.

Bibliography

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W. W. Norton, 1963. An objective look at suburban society and the status of women in the 1950’s. Through numerous examples, Friedan shows that woman’s limited role as full-time housewife is emotionally crippling.

Harvey, Brett. The Fifties: A Women’s Oral History. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. A discussion of the restraints and expectations placed upon women during the 1950’s, supported by a plethora of case studies. In the chapter entitled “Post-Doc or Paella,” Harvey cites a customary greeting from a Radcliffe president, who tells students that their educations would be good preparation for marriage and motherhood. The supposition that motherhood was woman’s only real function led many, such as the character of Dianne, to abandon all other pursuits.

Heilbrun, Carolyn. Reinventing Womanhood. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. A treatise on the traditional dependency of women and their lack of role models. Heilbrun cites two types of mothers: the high-achieving mother, such as Dr. Shapiro, who is hated by her daughter; and the passive mother, who cannot serve as a role model.

Hite, Molly. The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminine Literature. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989. A discussion of the attempt on the part of women writers to create a different literary style that expresses the feminine view of situations. Argues that while Rossner’s style is not markedly innovative, the tone of frenzy in Attachments captures a woman’s desperate striving to piece together the chaotic and fragmented world in which she lives.