Miss Benson's Beetle

“No one meant to hurt her. In fact, they meant the opposite—they meant to spare her from shame—but it was like passing through a bewitched land, a place without signposts or boundaries where everyone was asleep but her.”

Margery recalls her isolated childhood in her aunts’ home. She has been conditioned to a solitary existence and this sense of loneliness makes it very difficult for her to relate to Enid; eventually, Margery learns that at least one other person in her world is also awake. 

“She went out looking all the time, and it was amazing, once you started, how easy they were to find. No matter what she was doing, beetles were always in her thoughts […] Beetles she understood. It was people who had become strange.”

Witnessing warfare and the deaths of family members at a very early age has taught Margery that the human world is irrational and violent. The world of nature is much more orderly by comparison. This comparison indicates how Margery’s passion for entomology is both separate from and informed by her past. 

“The small crowd turned to look at the yellow-haired woman, now struggling to gather up not one, but three whacking great suitcases and a red valise, then turned for a good look at Margery in her pith helmet, as if there were a tight line running from one to the other that made no sense.”

During Margery’s first encounter with Enid at the train station, she is acutely aware of how different they are, yet all the other passengers have recognized a connection between them, foreshadowing their friendship. It isn’t until later in the story that Margery acknowledges their connection and the fact that it makes perfect sense.

“It was so easy to find yourself doing the things in life you weren’t passionate about, to stick with them even when you didn’t want them and they hurt. But now the time for dreaming and wishing was over, and she was going. She was traveling to the other side of the world. It wasn’t just the ship that had been unmoored. It was her entire sense of herself.”

Margery eagerly anticipates her beetle expedition. She uses exactly the same phrase that Freya Bartlett will utter at the end of the novel, “She was going.” For both women, the journey disconnects them from a conventional persona and introduces them to their authentic selves.

“She felt she had been called to give something of herself that was way beyond anything she had given to another person, but everything about her felt too big for the situation.”

Enid has just reproached Margery for failing to help her after the supposed miscarriage. Nothing in Margery’s experience has prepared her for such a situation. Her isolated, emotionally repressed upbringing had no place for someone like Enid or her particular problems. Margery is both too big in the sense of being physically awkward and also too small in terms of her lack of empathy.

“Finding the beetle is your life’s work and mine is having a baby. It’s our vocation, Marge. If we don’t do it, we’ll die of sadness. Giving up isn’t an option.”

This is the first time in the novel that Enid articulates the notion of a vocation. The word choice is so uncharacteristic that Margery remarks on it. Enid will repeat this same message several more times, emphasizing the importance of not only self-knowledge, but self-actualization.

“Enid was far from perfect. And yet it was suddenly clear to Margery, as clear as the light already sharpening at her window, that without Enid’s help, she would never be able to find her father’s beetle.”

Very early in their relationship, Enid proves that she can spring into action at moments when Margery is overcome by indecision or despair. By the time the two women reach Brisbane, Margery herself is getting an inkling of the value of polarity.

“Now would have been the moment for Margery to open up […] She had been raised in a house of women whose skill at not saying a difficult thing verged on professional. The truth had become such an elusive entity, she could as easily talk about her feelings as ride a mule.”

This quote echoes a previous statement referencing Margery’s repressive upbringing. In this statement, she is admitting her struggle with expressing emotion while acknowledging the high price to be paid for maintaining stoicism. This quote also humorously foreshadows that Margery will both learn to talk about her feelings and ride an actual mule by the end of the novel.

“She got the feeling she was always looking at life through a glass wall, but one that had bobbles in it and cracks, so that she could never fully see what was on the other side, and even when she did, it was too late.”

Margery perceives herself as a spectator in relation to other people. To a great extent, this has been true: She watched her father take his own life and watched her mother waste away from despair. She watched Professor Smith for years, pining away with unrequited love. Enid offers her a chance to break out of her role as an observer and to become the principal actor in her own life.

“Answered prayers can be frightening, suggesting—as they do—an obligation to act.”

Now that Margery has achieved her dream of getting to New Caledonia, she feels frightened. If left to her own devices, she might never find the beetle. It takes the combination of Margery’s planning and Enid’s intrepid execution to make her dream a reality.

“You’re a snob. You’re a complete snob. You’re on a fool’s errand, and you think you can do it by the book. Well, I don’t give a toss about your paperwork. It’s the first of December, and tomorrow I’m heading north.”

Enid has her own reasons for wanting to disappear into the mountains, but her sense of urgency will serve Margery well. The latter falls into indecision because she approaches her life by the book and overthinks every problem. Enid acts first and thinks later. Without Enid, Margery would find herself stranded in Noumea, waiting for approval.

“Enid climbed onto a wooden jetty, hopping between the missing slats while the breeze tossed her hair. Britain seemed another life. And it wasn’t just home that was as far away as it could be. Neither of us, Margery thought, is the woman we were when we met.”

Even though Margery observes a change in both women, the novel is primarily focused on her own evolution from a rule-follower into a free spirit. Even if Margery had gotten to New Caledonia on her own, her inner transformation while there wouldn’t have been possible without Enid. Here, Margery has gained the confidence to know that she, too, has had an effect on her new friend.

“No. It’s not because I am dressed as a man. It’s because I am a woman who is ready for adventure. I’m not here because I am someone’s wife or sister. I am here because this is what I want, and now I have a place for my work.”

Enid has just created a study area for Margery in their little hut. This is an acknowledgment of Margery’s pursuit of the beetle as her life’s work—her vocation. Enid clearly takes the quest seriously. In this quote, Margery reveals that she has begun to take herself seriously too, and rejects gendered expectations of what she should do with her life. 

“You might travel to the other side of the world, but in the end it made no difference: whatever devastating unhappiness was inside you would come, too.”

Margery’s observation speaks directly to the ways in which she, Enid, and Mundic are all haunted by past events. Despite traveling far from England, the characters cannot escape the unresolved trauma that took place at home. 

“It occurred to Margery that this was how it was, that there was always darkness, and in this darkness was unspeakable suffering, and yet there were also the daily things—there was even the search for a gold beetle—and while they could not cancel the appalling horror, they were as real.”

This quote offers a counterpoint to the preceding one. Despite the fact that the world is a grim place, Margery has been able to find beauty and wonder as well. That such a creature as the golden beetle could exist in the midst of such darkness gives a person reason to hope. Here, Joyce suggests that healing does not require a person to forget about past pain, only that they recognize the simultaneous possibility of joy.

“But war was not over just because someone signed a truce. It was inside him. And when a thing like war was inside you, it never left.”

Mundic fully articulates the principle that Margery only hinted at in an earlier quote. He has known the full horrors of war and carries those memories everywhere. Joyce posits that unresolved trauma continues to harm a person long after the initial injury. 

“The differences between them—all those things she’d once found so infuriating—she now accepted. Being Enid’s friend meant there were always going to be surprises.”

Initially, Margery deplored the contrast between her own nature and Enid’s. Later, she comes to appreciate the usefulness of that contrast. This quote indicates that she accepts the difference, not because it serves her, but because she has truly come to love and accept her friend for who she is.

“If Margery needed something, she didn’t have to ask: Enid passed it. They had been together so long their differences seemed to dissolve. And while they couldn’t share their past lives, they existed inside each other’s thoughts and work.”

During the final stages of the beetle hunt, the two women work together in unison. They complement one another and help each other. The common goal of finding an obscure insect has forged a true friendship. 

“But no matter how awful life was, I would never want to give up. I would always want to keep living. Just waiting for that moment when it might get better. You need to remember that, Marge. You must never give up again.”

This quote is another one of Enid’s pep talks for Margery, contrasting Enid’s optimism with Margery’s pessimism. After Enid’s death, Margery faces the challenge of living out the principles of her friend by moving forward without her.

“It struck her again: a life was such a short thing. All those things people carried, and struggled to carry, yet one day they would disappear, and so would the suffering inside them, and all that would be left was this. The trees, the moon, the dark.”

During her time in the jungle, Margery connects with nature in a profound way. Most of the misery depicted in the novel is manmade. The characters experience war and repressive social customs, but these are human constructs. Within the context of nature’s immensity, they seem insignificant and easier to defy.

“And, after all, what did it mean? Home? Suppose it was not the place you came from, but a thing you carried with you, like a suitcase. And you could lose your suitcase, she knew that now. You could open another person’s luggage, and put on their clothes, and though you might feel different at first, out of your depth, something inside you was the same, and even a little more true to itself, a little more free.”

When Margery’s luggage is temporarily misplaced, she is put out at the inconvenience. Yet, this proves to be a blessing. Her frumpy suits are a disguise that she’s been wearing all her life in an attempt to fit in. Men’s clothing allows her greater freedom of movement while trekking through the mountains. This freedom of physical movement corresponds to her increasingly unencumbered mental state once she leaves civilization behind.

“Your vocation is not your friend. It’s not a consolation for someone you lost once, or even a way of passing the time. It doesn’t care whether you’re happy or sad. You must not betray it, Marge. And Gloria will not thank you, you know. It will be a terrible thing for her to bear if she learns one day that you gave up on your vocation simply for her. You saved my life, Marge. I will not let you kill yours.”

Once again, Margery is on the point of sacrificing her own needs in favor of someone else’s. While doing so might seem to benefit Enid and Gloria, it is a true mark of Enid’s loyalty to her friend that she will not allow this sacrifice. A vocation must be honored, no matter how inconvenient it may be for mother and child.

“Enid had been right. She had been right all along. Margery’s adventure was not about making her mark on the world: it was about letting the world make its mark on her.”

When Margery begins her quest, she is partially motivated by a desire for recognition: She wants the Natural History Museum to acknowledge her as a great explorer. By the end of her quest, Margery realizes that academia has little meaning in the jungle. Being alive to the wonders of nature matters more than the approval of others.