Blonde: A Novel

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Norma Jeane’s Struggle to Find an Identity

Content Warning: Sexual assault and sexualization occur frequently throughout the novel. In addition, derogatory terms for women are used, and suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism, and abortion are presented.

The world knows Norma Jeane as Marilyn Monroe, and this is true for a large part of the novel. This identity never feels authentic to her, and from the beginning of her life until the end, she struggles to determine who she really is. At the beginning of the novel, Norma Jeane seeks this identity in maternal and paternal figures. Norma Jeane tries to identify and associate with mother figures and to figure out who her father is. At one point in the novel, it is mentioned that she and her mother were so close that they were like they were one person. Norma Jeane accepts this identity as strongly as her mother does, and because her mother hates herself, this self-hatred is passed onto Norma Jeane. Still, she is the only parent she has, and she accepts this identity and this projected hatred of self.

Throughout the novel, she continues to try to define herself through her relationships, and she does this primarily through casting people as father figures. When she marries Bucky, she believes she has become a real person and has discovered who she is now that she is a wife and hopefully eventually a mother. This leaves her overly dependent upon him, because being the primary source of identity for a person is a large task, especially considering his age. She calls Bucky—as well as her subsequent husbands, the Ex-Athlete and the Playwright—“Daddy.” She is seeking comfort, identity, and caretaking because she does not know who she is and how to provide these supports for herself. None of these men know they will be asked to play this role in her life, but the Playwright does his best to care for her. Because she lacks a feeling of substance in herself, she attaches too firmly to identity through relationships.

Norma Jeane also finds an identity in the characters she plays. At times, she believes that she is the characters, and she needs people to remind her that while these characters may be a part of her, they are not her. In a way, she is a nesting doll with all of these characters within her, and Marilyn is but one of these characters. Some of these characters are beloved and some are not, and all of the films eventually end, leaving her without that identity or else struggling to play it in her everyday life. She is frequently described as being such a good actress because she goes into the characters she plays, and this is likely why she associates with them so deeply.

The one role she never feels like she inhabits is that of Marilyn Monroe. To her, Marilyn is a role she plays, a part just as much as any of her characters. The world around her wants her to be Marilyn, but she rejects this persona that was artificially created to make money. At her core, Norma Jeane is ashamed of Marilyn Monroe and her overt sexuality, and she wants to be seen as more than a sexual being. She believes Marilyn is mocked, and she does not want to be mocked.

From the beginning of her depicted life until the end, Norma Jeane is portrayed as a person who does not know herself. She seeks out her identity in relationships and in characters, but none of these are able to fill her up and make her feel real and solid and secure. This is a large part of her tragedy as it is depicted in this novel.

The Trauma of Sexual Assault, Abuse, and Exploitation

Norma Jeane suffers from sexual assault, abuse, and exploitation throughout the novel, and these experiences help form her and particularly help form her view of her sexuality as well as her view of Marilyn Monroe. One of the first clearly depicted scenes where she feels demeaned sexually is with her husband Bucky. When she is distraught upon learning he has enlisted in the military, she wakes him, and she is disheveled, sexually aggressive, and her breasts are bare. Bucky, having just woken up, is annoyed and disgusted by her and calls her a cow. He does not like sexually aggressive women. While this act was not a sexual assault, the comment made at a time when she was vulnerable and insecure plays a role in the rest of her life, as she continues to repeat his words when she feels her worst.

It is not entirely clear who abuses Norma Jeane sexually when she is younger, as the abuse is not described at the time it happens to her. Rather, it comes back to her at times in her life. For example, at one time, she remembers her mother’s boyfriends peeking at her when she sleeps, likely in a sexual manner. She also remembers Clive Pearce touching her backside and then quickly moving his hand. The fact that these and other sexually abusive memories come back to her throughout her life demonstrate the pervasive and continuous role they play in her life. They cannot be completely relegated to the past.

Norma Jeane experiences what likely are sexual assaults throughout her life, although even these details are not always entirely clear. One example of this is her sexual encounter with Z. He is rough enough that she bleeds and is in significant pain afterward. She feels ashamed. Still, whether she was coerced or physically forced is unclear. Either, however, would have constituted a sexual assault. This is not something she forgets, as she wants to confront him about it years later, still furious.

Norma Jeane never escapes the sexually demeaning behavior of men, from anonymous strangers in a movie theater to the President. It is likely that these experiences lead her to the scorn she has for Marilyn Monroe. She knows that people want her to fail and that she is viewed as a whore. This desire to laugh at her is never clearly shown in the novel, but it is possible that this view of hers stems from the dehumanizing and degrading experiences she has with men throughout the entire novel. Through these and many other sexual experiences presented in the novel, Oates is able to demonstrate the degree to which sexual abuse and exploitation affect people for a lifetime, and how part of Norma Jeane’s tragedy is her inability to ever get free of this.

The Difficulty of Understanding the Truth of Norma Jeane’s Life

The author reveals details of Norma Jeane’s life sometimes in a straightforward manner and sometimes through dreams interspersed with reality. Oates frequently provides vague details, as well as details advanced through rumors and the media but never verified by Norma Jeane in the novel or by the other narrators. While this muddled tone sometimes makes details unclear, it allows the reader to experience the chaos and confusion that was Norma Jeane’s life.

It is difficult at times, in the novel, to determine who exactly has had sexual relations with Norma Jeane. Because the press really only cares about Marilyn Monroe’s sexuality, this is a significant theme. The confusion Oates sows likely stems from at least two intentions on her part. The first is that much of the novel is told in the third- or the first-person perspectives of people who are not Norma Jeane. On one page, a whole list of Marilyn Monroe’s lovers, as reported by the press, is presented, but the author does not present these narrative details in the novel, leaving the reader to wonder if the accusations are true. Since the story is often told from outside of Norma Jeane’s perspective, the truth cannot be found. The second likely reason that Oates makes it difficult to determine the truth of Norma Jeane’s relationships is because Marilyn Monroe was a fabrication of the film industry. She was a commodification. As she is not real, she mainly exists in the imagination of others. This makes unknown details about her life realistic. Some readers may perceive this lack of clarity as frustrating at times, but it represents the reality of determining the truth of the lives of historical and highly commercialized figures.

Another factor in the book that allows Oates to create a sense of confusion in the novel is the manner in which the details unfold. For example, when Norma Jeane decides to have an abortion, it is alluded to in one chapter. In another chapter it is given in more detail, and then throughout other chapters it becomes obvious that she did not want to have the abortion in the end and tried to avoid it. This is all muddied by the depiction of the abortion itself as Norma Jeane either hallucinates or dreams during the procedure, and the details of that dream are commingled together with what happens in her real, albeit fictionalized, life. Again later, the author reveals that she suffered psychologically after the abortion.

Further muddying the details is Norma Jeane’s use of drugs and alcohol. Because she is not often aware of everything that is happening around her, the details cannot clearly be known. Sometimes details become clearer, such as when she protests that her stomach was pumped. She voluntarily took these drugs most of the time or asked for them, but they restrict her faculties to make decisions. The details of Norma Jeane’s life are not always clear, and this lack of clarity helps present Norma Jeane’s life as one of mirage, drugs, and confusion.