Small Pleasures

Chambers explores different types of womanhood throughout the novel, including “unofficial aunts” and caretakers. How do the characters embody different identities? How do these roles conflict?

Does Jean support other women in this novel? Why or why not? How does this novel complicate this notion?

Explore the novel’s take and arguments on women’s health care in the mid-20th century.

What is the significance of Dorrie and Jean’s relationship? How does Small Pleasures explore sisterhood?

What genres does Small Pleasures draw from? How does it use those genres’ tropes and expectations? How does it subvert them?

Discuss the novel’s exploration of mental health. How do conceptions of mental illness, eccentricity, and rejection of social norms differ? How do they intersect?

What is the significance of Gretchen’s foreignness throughout the novel? Why does Gretchen call herself and her mother “already outsiders anyway” (20)? How else does foreignness operate in the narrative?

Clare Chambers uses real historical events and newspaper clippings from Kent to construct the story of Small Pleasures. What effect does this have on the reading experience? How would the novel be different without them?