50 pages • 1 hour read
Helen SimonsonThe Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The German U-Boat
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.
The German U-boat on the beach at Hazelbourne-on-Sea is a symbol of the lasting impacts of the war in 1919 and of the way the public would prefer to hide or ignore them rather than face the new normal. It represents the way the public thinks of veterans as heroes but would rather not witness the physical ravages of the war on their bodies, so they are denied employment or hidden away in convalescent homes. Similarly, it represents the ways in which women in the novel are expected to remove themselves from the public sphere and resume their domestic roles. The symbol is made explicit by Constance, who considers the U-boat’s removal “liable to be a long process” (37), just as the population’s recovery and acceptance of social change would be. This image is ambiguous, however, as Constance wonders why people “[a]re in such a rush to have the war towed away and tided up anyway. Memories fade[], scabbed over by the layers of time. Perhaps a lasting peace require[s] some rusting reminders of carnage?” (41). Constance’s words highlight the futility of trying to ignore the lasting impacts of war on society.
The U-boat’s stubbornness represents the unavoidable nature of the war’s impact on society but also the capacity for communities to rebuild. When military efforts to remove it fail, Mrs. Wirrall tells Constance, “Our town’s leaders are mortified that [the submarine] should remain to spoil our Peace Day celebrations. Now our illustrious committee insists it be incorporated and have added to our small air show with a full-scale bombing attack from the air” (253). Rather than accept the presence of the U-boat as a negative sign, the community chooses to reimagine it as an emblem of their victory over the Germans.
Marriage
Marriage is a motif that highlights Social Pressure for Female Respectability. The number and variety of marriage pairings in the novel help to explore the idea of marriage as a happy ending, especially for women. This motif is subversive because it challenges the traditional generic role of marriage as the denouement of a romance novel. This is partly expressed by the marriages being those of supporting characters and not the heroine and her love interest, as generic expectations might suggest.
One of the key marriages in the novel is between Mrs. Fog and Simon de Champney. Mrs. Fog was prevented from marrying Simon—twice—because of her family’s pressure. First, her father rejected Simon’s request for her hand, despite having already made a deal for the de Champneys’ land, because her marriage to Mr. Fog rendered her much more respectable. Then, she was pressured to refuse Simon again after being widowed because it would make her own daughter less respectable. Now, Lady Mercer attempts—a third time—to disrupt Mrs. Fog’s wedding plans on the eve of Mrs. Fog’s granddaughter Rachel’s wedding, so as not to tarnish Rachel’s reputation and chances of marital success. It is only because Mrs. Fog refuses to agree to social pressure to maintain her “respectability” that she all but completely disregards her daughter’s wishes, only waiting until the day after Rachel’s marriage to secure her own happiness.
Rachel and Percival Allerton’s marriage is juxtaposed with Mrs. Fog’s. Their union is shown as based on poor foundations: Rachel’s pregnancy obliges her to continue with the marriage despite Percival’s poor character and dishonor. He represents male tyranny and hypocrisy, as he uses Rachel’s pregnancy as leverage and is prepared to desert her if she has Black ancestry.
The Champney/Fog marriage represents social progress and change, though the couple is somewhat elderly, and the Mercer/Allerton marriage represents tradition and conventional social codes despite the partners’ youth. This irony suggests the Perspective Created by Loss, as Simon and Mrs. Fog are shown to be stronger and wiser than their younger counterparts in resisting social pressures to conform.
Motorcycles
The new accessibility of motorbikes symbolizes the increased freedom from restrictive social codes that follows World War I. As the population changed as a result of war and the flu pandemic, attitudes shifted. Women learned to drive, ride, and fly during the war when they took up new roles to support the war effort. In the peacetime setting of the novel, the motorcycle is expressive of women’s increased physical and personal freedom and their literal ability to move autonomously without a man. When Constance goes for her first ride, “[s]he c[an]not explain the release in her body, the sensation like the breaking of a fever” (46). Flying down the road in Poppy’s sidecar is exhilarating, and Constance screams into the wind with abandon, ignoring social codes that demand female “respectability” and demure behavior. Mrs. Fog, who is now ready to be unconventional, enjoys riding on the motorcycle, while neither Lady Mercer nor Rachel would ever agree to it. The characters’ attitudes to the motorcycle represent their attitudes to the wider change it symbolizes.
The women’s motorcycles are also a social equalizer and expressive of increased mixing between classes at this time: The club includes Evangeline and Guinevere but also Tilly, a librarian, and Jenny, a seamstress with a family to support. Anyone can learn to ride, regardless of class or status. When Mrs. Fog decides to let Poppy drive Constance to London in the motorbike, she says, “[I]f we keep it to ourselves the question of propriety need not, perhaps, be addressed too closely” (172). As Mrs. Fog embraces the fun of riding, she also learns to let go of some of the old social rules by which she’s lived. As some members of society, like Mrs. Fog, relax these standards of behavior—either because they have gained a new perspective or because the world has simply changed too much to maintain them—those standards shift. Thus, of riding, Constance says, “[O]nce you let go, something shifts inside […] It feels like freedom” (46). Thus, the ladies’ motorcycles symbolize their increasing freedom and the deteriorating class structure that privileged the aristocracy.
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