Character Clues
Character Analysis
Physical Appearances
Right from the get-go, Beatrice-Joanna's physical appearance sets her apart from the other women we meet in the novel's opening chapter. As the novel's narrative voice tells us, she's "handsome in the old way, a way no longer approved in a woman of her class" (1.1.11). To put it bluntly, she's attractive in a baby-making kind of way: even under her "straight graceless waistless" dress and a "constraining bodice," her hips and breasts are noticeable (1.1.11).
Women in Beatrice-Joanna's world—at this point in the novel, anyway—aren't supposed to draw attention to their sexuality or their fertility. Like other women her age, Beatrice-Joanna wears white powder on her face to deemphasize her fleshly color and health (1.1.11). Once the people of England go gaga for cannibalism and sex in the open fields, though, Beatrice-Joanna's distinctive physical appearance becomes much more normal. The "threat of fecundity" that her voluptuous body seems to suggest (1.1.11) is no longer considered a threat at all.
Food
We can learn a lot about Tristram, and about his society too, by watching what he eats.
Throughout Chapter One, Tristram gets a lot of snacks that tell us what life is like for people in his world: when Joscelyne offers him a "caff," he doesn't mean a cup of coffee, but a "caffeine tablet" (1.8.1); when Beatrice-Joanna offers him a "nut," she doesn't mean an almond, but a carefully regulated "nutrition-unit" (1.12.24). No wonder Tristram doesn't need real teeth: in his world, there isn't a whole lot of food that needs chewing anymore.
Like many of his fellow countrymen, Tristram doesn't seem too disgusted by the thought of cannibalism when the global food crops finally collapse. In fact, when he gets his first taste of human flesh, he doesn't feel disturbed at all; instead, he's much more excited about tasting meat for the first time in his life (4.1.5). Unlike Beatrice-Joanna, who resists (at least at first), Tristram jumps right in. He may not be willing to scheme and manipulate just to get ahead, but when it comes right down to it, Tristram is willing to do whatever it takes to survive.
Sex and Love
Beatrice-Joanna and Tristram feel all mixed up about each other when the novel begins, and their sex life as a married couple tells us quite a bit about their marriage, and about the world they live in too.
Beatrice-Joanna loves Tristram, but she hasn't been sexually attracted to him since their first son was born. She associates her husband's body with dead meat (um…gross) whereas she thinks of her lover Derek's body as "fire and ice, paradisaical fruit, inexpressibly delicious and exciting" (1.7.2).
These food metaphors aren't a coincidence: in a world where both food and sexuality are strictly regulated by the government, celebrating the pleasures of one feels a little like celebrating the pleasures of the other. Ultimately, this is a novel about human "appetites" in all their many forms, and Beatrice-Joanna's sexuality makes that clear.
Tristram has fond memories of "the early days of their marriage," when "she had taken pleasure in biting his ear-lobes" (1.2.15), and Beatrice-Joanna, for her part, sometimes wonders "what meat had tasted like," back when there was any for people to eat:
"Her mouth recollected only the salt of live human skin in a purely amatory context—lobes, fingers, lips. [. . .] That, she supposed, was what was meant by the term sublimation" (2.6.1).