The Memory Keeper's Daughter

“He lifted her foot both delicate and swollen inside the light blue sock, and began to massage it gently: the powerful tarsal bone of her heel, the metatarsals and the phalanges, hidden beneath skin and densely layered muscles like a fan about to open. Her breathing filled the quiet room, her foot warmed his hands, and he imagined the perfect, secret symmetry of bones. In pregnancy she seemed to him beautiful but fragile, fine blue veins faintly visible through her pale white skin.”

The author ties science inextricably to the male gaze, as though the bone classifications associated with medical knowledge represent something inherently male. Although this could reflect the society in which these characters live, David’s objectification of his wife through the categorization of her bones demonstrates the problematic nature of this representation. Norah is reduced to a collection of various—albeit beautiful—bones; she does not appear as a fully formed person within David’s conceptualization. Rather, he sees her for what he wants, not who she actually is: he wants the uncomplicated and perfect beauty associated with skeletal structure, not the complex psychology her body holds. In this way, David only seems to appreciate Norah for her beauty, even in his own fantasies. Through David’s gaze, Norah is rendered two dimensional at best, even as she grows life inside her. But David has no concept of the dynamism associated with pregnancy. In his world, there is no room for a lack of understanding, so he focuses his attention of what he does know lies beneath her skin, that which is easy for him to imagine. He does not want to understand her as complex but rather as perfect symmetry, enforcing his concept of order upon the world around him.