City of Girls

“Perhaps I had not been such a terrible student, after all. Perhaps I had merely been sad. I am only realizing this possibility at this moment, as I write to you. Oh, dear. Sometimes it takes a very long while to figure things out.”

Vivian makes this observation seventy years after flunking out of Vassar. She only understands the significance of the experience as she describes, suggesting that both Angela and Vivian will be affected by the telling of Vivian’s story.

“It was all grandiose, it was all crumbling. The Lily reminded me of Grandmother Morris—not only because my grandmother had loved gawdy old playhouses like this, but also because my grandmother had looked like this: old, overdone, and proud, and decked to the nines in out-of-date velvet.”

Vivian draws a parallel between Peg’s theater and her grandmother, who taught her to sew. In doing this, Vivian foreshadows that she will come to love the Lily as much as she loved her grandmother. Both represent the kind of family she yearns for.

“She was of the mind that people should make their own decisions about their own lives, if you can imagine such a preposterous thing! Peg’s world ran on chaos, and yet somehow it worked.”

Vivian is talking about Peg’s philosophy of life. Her parents’ rules of behavior have no relevance in Peg’s world. Meaningful tasks can still be accomplished in the midst of chaos. This is a liberating idea to Vivian.

“Whatever Celia was doing, I would be doing it, too. Whatever happened to Celia, it would happen to me, too. Because I am not a child, I told myself—the way children always do.”

Vivian mimics Celia’s activity so that she won’t miss a single experience of the high life. Because her parents suppressed her freedom to such an extreme degree, she is determined to act out now that no one is forcing her to stop. The older, wiser Vivian realizes that such behavior is the essence of childishness.

“Essentially, our chosen line of work that summer was romping and rampaging—and we did it with a tirelessness that staggers my imagination even to this day.”

Vivian is talking about the summer of 1940 when she and Celia went club-hopping every night. Perhaps Vivian’s rigid upbringing is the spur for her hyperactive hedonism. She needs to make up for lost time.

“Celia and I spun through New York City that summer on currents of pure electricity. Instead of walking, we rocketed. There was no focus; there was just a constant search for the vivid. We missed nothing, but we also missed everything.”

Vivian’s observation is made from the viewpoint of an older, wiser woman. At the time the events occurred, Vivian was merely nineteen, pursuing adrenaline rushes at the expense of truly paying attention to anything or anyone around her. The comment warns of the price she will later pay for that heedlessness.

“The difference between making a dress and making a costume, of course, is that dresses are sewn, but costumes are built. Many people these days can sew, but not many know how to build. A costume is a prop for the stage, Vivvie, as much as any piece of furniture, and it needs to be strong.”

In one of their many conversations, Edna imparts this advice to Vivian. Edna’s understanding of costume design will serve Vivian well for the rest of her career. Vivian applies the same principle when she begins to design bridal gowns because she understands that weddings are just another form of theater.

“People will tell you not to waste your youth having too much fun, but they’re wrong. Youth is an irreplaceable treasure, and the only respectable thing to do with irreplaceable treasure is to waste it. So do the right thing with your youth, Vivian—squander it.”

Billy offers this advice to Vivian while the two are having a conversation about Celia’s hedonism. Unlike everyone else in Vivian’s birth family, Uncle Billy is a devotee of fast living. He practices what he preaches, but his advice is tinged with sadness. He knows how short a lease everyone has on life.

“I know she looks like a little doll, Vivian, but never underestimate this woman. She is to be respected. Be aware that there’s an iron spine hidden under all those stylish clothes of hers.”

Billy makes this comment to Vivian about Edna. He doesn’t realize how much his assessment foreshadows Edna’s behavior in the face of Vivian’s betrayal with Arthur. Even with the world watching her performance, she refuses to be broken. She also refuses to lose her temper with Vivian. She eviscerates her with a few well-chosen words.

“You will discover as you get older that there’s practically nothing but subtleties. And I hate to disappoint you, but it’s best you learn now: most marriages are neither heavenly nor hellish, but vaguely purgatorial.”

Edna makes this comment when Vivian questions the unique arrangement that undergirds Peg and Billy’s marriage. It applies equally well to Edna’s own marriage to Arthur, whom nobody else can understand. Vivian is still young and sees only black and white rather than the shades of grey that Edna suggests exist in all relationships.

“Again, this was part of the charm of Anthony Roccella—that incredible lack of urgency. The way that he could take it or leave it.”

Vivian is initially attracted to Anthony because of his laid-back attitude toward life. He has enough confidence to roll with the punches no matter what the world throws at him. Given Vivian’s obsessive pursuit of vivid experiences, Anthony shows her a different way to react to life.

“There was nothing in Edna’s life that wasn’t beautiful. I never saw anybody who cared about aesthetics more than that woman did.”

Edna’s obsession with beauty extends in all directions. She talks about the aesthetics of fashion for hours. She marries a dim-witted but physically beautiful man. She only finds Vivian and Celia initially interesting because both are attractive.

“A woman of your type often believes she is a person of significance because she can make trouble and spoil things for others. But she is neither important nor interesting.”

When Vivian apologizes to Edna for her liaison with Arthur, Edna crushes her with this retort. Edna is coldly furious and wants to damage Vivian’s self-esteem permanently. The rest of the story proves that Vivian moves past this initial assessment, as she becomes both important and interesting to the people in her life.

“You must learn in life to take things more lightly, my dear. The world is always changing. Learn how to allow for it.”

Vivian is appalled when Peg tells her that Billy moved the play to the Morosco theater, seeing it as an act of disloyalty. The older woman is more accustomed to the ups and downs of life. Vivian is still learning what Peg and Anthony both know—when to let go.

“Some mistakes can never be put right—not by the passage of time, and not by our most fervent wishes, either. In my experience, this is the hardest lesson of them all.”

Vivian makes this comment after encountering Edna and Anthony years after their time at the Lily. Both snub her. She has grown wiser about the nature of life in the interval and doesn’t pursue forgiveness from either one. She merely accepts her loss as it is.

“After a certain age, we are all walking around this world in bodies made of secrets and shame and sorrow and old, unhealed injuries. Our hearts grow sore and misshapen around all this pain—yet somehow, still, we carry on.”

Vivian tells Angela the consequences of living as long as she has done. Although Vivian frequently pays lip service to accepting life’s hard knocks, this comment implies that she has held onto a good deal of suffering and hasn’t completely learned to live lightly as Peg advises.

“Anyway, at some point in a woman’s life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is.”

Vivian’s eccentric behavior has always invited disapproval. First, she receives the criticism of her family and later invites the censure of the rest of the world. Her real moment of liberation comes when she decides to stop listening to the people who cause her to feel shame and to start living life on her own terms.

“Children don’t have any honor, you see, and they aren’t expected to, because it’s too difficult for them. It’s too painful. But to become an adult, one must step into the field of honor.”

Olive makes this pivotal statement of ethics when Vivian contemplates running away from an encounter with Frank. The older woman is saying that it’s time for Vivian to grow up and take responsibility for the choices she makes. For the first time in her life, Vivian is willing to brave the consequences of her actions and finally start acting like an adult.

“I fell in love with him, and it made no sense for me to fall in love with him. We could not possibly have been more different. But maybe that’s where love grows best—in the deep space that exists between polarities.”

Vivian is describing her feelings for Frank and the paradox of their relationship. She doesn’t seem to realize that she has always loved people who wouldn’t be considered suitable for her. But Vivian allows her heart, rather than society, to decide who’s best for her.

“And then there was Frank. He was such a weighty person—by which I mean, heavy in his very essence […] He was a man who did nothing casually, thoughtlessly, or carelessly.”

Vivian’s whole life has been careless and thoughtless because she reacts as a child would. Significantly, she also wants to flee an encounter with Frank until Olive tells her about the field of honor. Frank is an adult, and Vivian becomes one too by engaging with him.

“The world ain’t straight. You grow up thinking things are a certain way. You think there are rules. You think there’s a way that things have to be. You try to live straight. But the world doesn’t care about your rules, or what you believe.”

Frank makes this pivotal statement after Vivian confesses her promiscuity to him. He is saying that society makes petty rules of conduct, but life is bigger than that. The world goes on whether one heeds those arbitrary rules or not. Peace of mind can only be gained by liberation from society’s rules.

“I have never loved the people I was supposed to love, Angela. Nothing that was ever arranged for me worked out the way it was planned.”

Looking back at the age of eighty-nine gives Vivian perspective on her life choices. Her parents arranged a particular future for their daughter, and none of the people Vivian subsequently loves would come from that rigid template for her existence. Vivian is drawn to eccentrics like herself, not the traditionalists her family would choose.

“‘But men are supposed to be brave,’ said Frank. ‘So what!’ I nearly shouted it. ‘Women are supposed to be pure, and look at me. I’ve had sex with countless men, Frank—and do you know what it means about me? Nothing. It’s just how it is.’”

Vivian offers this counterpoint when Frank condemns himself for being a coward during the war. She is paraphrasing his own observation that the world isn’t straight. While Frank is able to accept Vivian for what she is, he doesn’t offer similar tolerance for himself until Vivian makes this statement.