The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

“But her rejection from the dining room made her uncertain future seem all the more immediate.”

Constance must worry about her future because she has no reliable source of income: no family fortune or support and no resources but herself. She will have to work, and that work could spell a lack of social “respectability” that will tarnish her reputation and make such dismissals and rejections more frequent. Thus, this situation is symbolic of the future that Constance both anticipates and fears.

“Everywhere she looked these days it seemed that the people […] had become smaller than their clothes. Hollowed out perhaps by the rationing, the ravages of influenza, the usual ailments of the British damp. But maybe it was just the long years of the war itself, which could not be sloughed off in a few days of Armistice celebrations.”

World War I seems to have dwarfed individuals’ sense of significance in the world. Not only have people shrunk physically, the effect of having less to eat and perhaps having less will to do so, but they also seem to have become smaller in other ways, too. This symbolism of size suggests that recovery from the war will be much slower than people would like because the effects are not so easily mitigated by parades and town fêtes.

“My mother is still out visiting and the powers that be here have decided that after four years of war and pestilence they should still have the vapors over a woman having tea in trousers.”

Poppy’s verbal irony reveals the absurdity of society’s continued care regarding something as irrelevant as women who dine alone or wear trousers when so many people have died in a horrifying war and pandemic. Why anyone would concern themselves with what a young lady chooses to wear after so much loss and pain strikes Poppy as ludicrous, encouraging Constance to think similarly.

“In the heat of service, Klaus spun and floated like a dancer.”

This simile reveals Klaus’s expertise and the pride he takes in his work. Despite his age and arthritis, and his low social status as a German after the war, he enjoys his work and does it to the very best of his ability. His work ethic ought to inspire others’ empathy and respect; instead, it goes mostly unnoticed and unrewarded.

“[W]here some might have met him with a tone of triumph or spite, [Constance] threw him a smile of gratitude and friendly recognition. In that moment Klaus became as smitten and devoted as the aging Don Quixote.”

This line not only characterizes Constance as understanding, and Klaus as deeply unused to be treated kindly, but also contains an allusion to the hopelessly romantic, if unself-aware, protagonist of Don Quixote. Klaus expects Constance to be smug about having to seat her in the dining room at night when he refused her admittance in the afternoon. This is clearly the treatment he’s used to receiving from hotel guests. However, Constance understands the notion of “duty” and doesn’t resent Klaus at all.

“Constance felt herself again the waif—an injured pigeon in a hatbox.”

This metaphor, in which Constance is compared to a bird, highlights how helpless and powerless she feels. Not only does she seem injured, and thus unable to “fly,” but she also feels trapped and confined by forces outside her control. Her own natural ability should guarantee her freedom, just as her intelligence and education have prepared her for a bigger life than the one she has.

“Since the war, no one thinks twice about two girls dancing together. It’s quite liberating not to have to worry about a man.”

On a literal level, Guinevere Morris’s comment highlights some of the changes that society has already undergone because of the war, part of the novel’s exposition of its historical setting. Because so many young men went away to fight, girls who wanted to dance often had to dance with one another. However, there’s a larger symbolic significance to her comment as well: The freedom that many women experienced in the men’s absence is hard to relinquish.

“A woman’s hair is part of her dowry, my mother used to say.”

Mrs. Fog’s comment shows the kind of family in which she was raised as well as society’s views of women and what they offer the world. To say that a woman’s hair is part of her dowry means that it is something she owes her husband, suggesting that her physical person should be a gift for him, compensation for his willingness to feed and house her for life. Such a belief shows how wildly someone like Poppy or Constance deviates from women’s “traditional” roles.

“It felt so good to let go of the tired world for a moment, grief and pain flushed from her body by the pummeling air.”

Descriptions like these highlight the figurative freedom associated with the ladies’ motorcycles. Not only do they provide the women with a potential source of income and financial independence, but they also allow for physical independence. Constance experiences a sense of release and relief when she rides with Poppy for the first time, as the joy of the experience helps her to forget the world’s problems as well as her own.

“‘It’s cold as a crypt in the winter,’ said Poppy. ‘But it’s the price of freedom.’”

Talking about the barn at Penneston in which she lives during the renovations, Poppy employs a simile, comparing it to a burial crypt during the coldest time of year. This description reveals that the cost of freedom (from “home” and all its rules) is a certain degree of isolation and discomfort. One cannot simply live outside the rules of society and still enjoy the benefits of remaining part of that society; if one chooses to resist its confines, as Poppy does, there are consequences.

“‘Perhaps the ephemeral nature of the bloom alongside the poison only makes it more poetic,’ said [Constance]. ‘We are forced to contemplate both the divine and the darkness.’”

Poppy, Constance, and Harris walk into the gardens at Penneston to view the tunnel created by the laburnum trees with their yellow flowers. Admiration for the beauty of this scene is one of the first commonalities that Constance and Harris share, and their beauty juxtaposes sharply with their poisonous nature. The symbolism of the flowers’ duality, beautiful to look at but fatal if ingested, reflects on other aspects of the characters’ lives: For example, the war was brutal, but it gave increased freedom and independence to women and ultimately helped to break down the rigid class structure of English society.

“One must admire their frenetic dedication to every pleasure under the sun. They insist on forgetting the past and living only for today.”

Harris speaks of the misses Morris, beautiful but vain women who are determined to move on from the war by embracing pleasure only. Their insistence on aesthetics and beauty led Evangeline to all but abandon Harris when he returned from the war, missing a leg. The twins foreshadow the Roaring ’20s, a postwar era associated with excess and frivolity.

“‘I don’t think people like us understand how many women must work to support themselves,’ said Iris. ‘And now the government seeks to push them out of so many industries and yet it does not provide husbands down at the Labor Exchange.’”

Iris has much more self-awareness than many of the other people in her set. She recognizes and understands that not everyone shares their upper-class privilege, and she speaks up for them. She is particularly sensitive to the plight of middle- and working-class women, like Tilly and Constance, who have few options but to marry to remain “respectable.”

“Wallowing about feeling sorry for himself, while Penneston fell into debt, he was like some sort of oblivious Nero, minus a leg and a fiddle.”

Harris develops a sense of shame for his self-pity, especially when he learns that his family estate has been losing money. In this allusion, Harris mentally compares himself to the Roman emperor Nero, who is rumored to have merely played his fiddle while watching Rome burn. This allusion suggests that Harris feels like he’s been remiss in his duty to his family, shirking responsibility and choosing to be selfish instead.

“It was a pleasant shock to be part of a group held in such high respect.”

As an unmarried woman without money, Constance is unused to feeling valued. When she visits the convalescent home at Penneston, she is greeted with respect. Despite her many abilities, her situation in life means that respectability is difficult to attain and maintain.

“Iris had looked, to Constance’s surprise, exactly like Poppy and the three or four men who had gone before. ‘I only knew Poppy by the navy trim on her coat.’”

When Poppy and Iris participate in the Victory Day motorcycle race, Constance can barely tell them apart from the other, male riders. This experience helps to illuminate The Arbitrary Nature of Gender Roles. If men and women can appear so interchangeably, it stands to reason that there is little else to meaningfully separate them.

“‘I’d love to be overbearing and have people agree I don’t mean anything by it,’ said Iris. ‘Unfortunately I know perfectly well that when I am overbearing, which I often like to be, they call me an absolute shrew.’”

Iris’s claim highlights one sexual double standard that exists for men and women. When Tom behaves overbearingly, he is defended by others, and she knows that when she speaks her mind bluntly, people are much slower to defend her. She wishes that she, and all women, were afforded the same benefit of the doubt as men like Tom.

“Women have such touching faith in the redeeming power of regular employment.”

When Poppy and Constance bring Jock Macintyre to the Penneston barn to sober up and work on the Sopwith Camel, Harris makes this condescending claim. It infantilizes women and their capacity for understanding, apparently holding their lack of familiarity with “regular employment” against them, though it is unusual for a woman of Poppy’s class to maintain such employment because it negates her “respectability.” Despite his patronizing tone, Poppy and Constance are correct, and their actions show their agency to improve the situation when the men are apathetic. While working together on the airplane and sharing a common goal of helping one another, both Harris and Jock improve.

“People are unable to see beyond what they deem our limitations.”

As Harris grows, he realizes that society sees amputees and women in a similar way. Just as he is perpetually underestimated by potential employers, so is Constance. This helps him to develop empathy for her and all women, contributing to his character’s dynamism.

“‘Let us not make fun of Americans as if they were all donkeys,’ said Lady Mercer. ‘It isn’t Christian.’ ‘No, indeed it is not fair to judge people merely by their heritage,’ said Mrs. Fog.”

When Lady Mercer defends Americans—the result of her daughter choosing to marry one—she suddenly, hypocritically—finds it unethical to judge groups of people based on one quality. She does not see that she has done precisely the same thing in judging the de Champneys. Her mother points this out, showing just how much perspective Mrs. Fog has gained.

“Mr. Smickle peered at her, astonished and not quite sure whether to be pleased, as men seemed to do, she had noticed, when a woman said something of import. It was as if when offering a dog a biscuit, the dog had thanked them and begun to quote from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.”

This simile draws attention to how little men think of women’s capacities for understanding and attention to detail. Constance quickly completes his employment test, and she does so in a way he did not anticipate. This causes him to respond to her with shock, the kind of shock he might display if a simple animal spoke intelligently to him.

“She was so busy thinking of her as an adversary to be managed, that she had not allowed any compassion for the mother about to lose her daughter for good. She reached over to discreetly squeeze Lady Mercer’s hand.”

This description of Constance’s thoughts shows what an empathetic and kind character she is. It encourages readers to identify with her and accept her opinions as correct, in the author’s eyes. That she can think kindly of and show kindness to the woman who is willing to materially damage her position in the world by withholding a recommendation is indicative of Constance’s good character.

“These women have families who count on their support. Everyone acts as if women work to make pin money—to buy a new dress or provide fancy cakes for tea. But the most well-off of my girls is looking to keep herself in a good winter coat and to afford her motorcycle, and some are supporting a widowed mother or are widows themselves.”

Poppy explains the very real and pressing concerns that women have, concerns that compel them to seek employment. This emphasizes society’s infantilization of women by highlighting a popular belief that women are supported by men and only work to buy new clothes or sweets, while men work to provide for their families and other unselfish reasons. This misconception damages women’s ability to live with dignity.