Foil

Character Role Analysis

Ivy Bolton and Connie

Ivy Bolton loves the hideous traveling-case that Connie hates. Enough said.

Well, not quite enough. Nurse Bolton loves the case because it's expensive. "What beautiful brushes," she says, "So expensive […] No! and those scissors! They're the best that money could buy. Oh, I call it lovely!" (11.18). Ivy's entire system of evaluation is based around money. To her, "expensive" is exactly the same thing as "lovely."

This moment is a microcosm of all the ways that the two women are foils. Connie hates Clifford; Ivy loves him. Connie sneaks out to have sex with Mellors; Ivy spies on her. Connie ministers to Clifford's intellect; Ivy takes care of his body. Connie helps him with his stories; Ivy lets him feel her boobs.

At the same time, they have a lot in common—just like any pair of foils. They both have a thing for Mellors ("Why, she, Ivy Bolton, had once been a tiny bit in love with him herself" [10.414]), and Connie more than once notices their shared female-ness, asking her about her dead husband with "a woman's question to a woman" (11.160). It's almost as though they can only be foils because they're both women, as though the most important thing about the two characters is that they show two different ways of being female.