Foil

Character Role Analysis

Lin/ Betty

A wise man named Philip Larkin one said a couple of things about the circle of life. You can read his (awesomely depressing) poem, but we'll also just paraphrase it for you: your parents mess you up inevitably, but don't be to hard on them, because they were inevitably just as messed up by their folks.

And we see this happening with both Betty and Lin's approach to raising their kids to conform to gender norms. Betty (with a lot of help from Clive) essentially tells her son Edward that no one will like him if he plays with dolls. Betty wants Edward to become a man's man.

Lin, about a hundred years later, does the same thing to her daughter Cathy. Except it's also kind of different. Confused? Bear with us. Lin is cool with Cathy doing traditionally boyish stuff like playing with toy guns, but she gets pretty peeved when Cathy enjoys putting on Betty's jewelry and looking like a typical girly-girl. She wants Cathy to be less femme-y.

Churchill is making the point here that we should all just let our kids be. They'll gravitate towards the props that best express their interest in gender and sexuality, and no amount of "No, Edward, be more typically manly" or "No Cathy, be less typically girly" is going to budge them.

After all, like Mr. Larkin says, kids will grow up messed up no matter what parents do; that's the way it is. Just try to minimize that damage.