Reader's Guide to Byatt's Matisse Stories

I. “Medusa’s Ankles”: (pg. 3-27)

1. Lucian says, “The past pulls you. Bones in the ground . . .” How does this comment  point to the past (youth) as the standard of beauty? How does it contribute to the story’s overall satire of the standard of beauty for women?

2. Is it significant that Lucian calls his new love “a perfectly beautiful girl,” as opposed to a beautiful “woman”?  What does the story say about the difference between girls and women?

3. Why is Susannah so afraid of being anything but natural? If Susannah prefers looking “natural,” why does she insist on regular visits to the salon?

4. Susannah’s husband compliments her on her hair and tells her that it takes “twenty years off you.” Does his reaction justify Lucian’s ideas of beauty? Moreover, do you think Susannah has no choice but to keep fighting the battle against the inexorable ravages of aging in order to be finally be “seen” again by her husband? 

5. What character do you think the title “Medusa’s Ankles” is referring to? Since Medusa is often a symbol of the female rage and the story ends with Susannah’s rage, what could the story be suggesting about Susannah? What do you think the story is suggesting is the source of her rage? What correlation do you draw between the mythical female monster Medusa, who is known for having snakes for hair, and the women in the salon, with their hair curled into “snaky sausages of aluminum foil?  

6. Susannah began going to this particular salon because of the Matisse painting through the salon’s window. Considering Susannah’s preoccupation with being “natural,” what do you think attracted her to the Matisse painting Rosy Nude?

7. After the salon has been remodeled, Susannah notices that her face has become grey and had lost “the deceptive rosy haze of the earlier lighting.” What do you think the story suggests through the salon’s transition from a rose color scheme to a gray one, specifically the transition between the Rosy Nude and photographs of girls with grey faces. What is it about the painting’s removal from the shop and replacement with “photographs of girls with grey faces, coal-black eyes, and spiky lashes under bonfires of incandescent puce hair” that upsets Susannah?

   II. “Art Work”: (pg. 31-86)

8. Why do you think Byatt has chosen to open the story with the description of the gray, colorless version of the Matisse painting Le Silence habite des maisons? In what way does the Matisse painting exemplify the Dennison’s lack of or need for color in their lives? What role does Mrs. Brown play in meeting that need?


9. The narrator describes Mrs. Brown’s art as colorful and “bizarre,” as opposed to Robin’s “frightening” and “depressing” art. What does the fact that both Debbie and Robin’s view of art is revived and transformed by a woman with no art education suggest about the ability of art to inspire? 


10.  Do you think that the story makes any claim to what “true” art really is, or is the story suggesting that there are no set rules on the proper way to create art? Do you think that the end of the story, with Robin’s “new kind of loosed, slightly savage energy” in his still “highly organized” art,  is suggesting Mrs. Brown is correct in saying that all colors “goes together somehow or other”? Or does the story suggest that Robin’s view that color has to be complementary is correct?


11.  Debbie writes for a magazine called A Woman’s Place, whose “obscure premise is that the woman’s place is not only, perhaps not even, primarily in the Home.” What do you make of the fact that Debbie is crammed into a tiny work space at home while her husband’s studio comprises an entire floor of the house? What does the story suggest about gender roles by having Debbie stay home to receive the doctor?


12. To what extent is both Debbie and Mrs. Brown’s quiet subservience to Robin a mockery of the patriarchal system as a whole? Why do you believe they continue to act in this capacity, despite being independent and capable themselves?


13. Mrs. Brown’s art exhibit includes many items from the Dennison household. Debbie “does not feel for a moment that Mrs. Brown has ‘stolen’ Robin’s exhibition, but she has a miserable fear that Robin may think that.” Do you think that Sheba Brown “stole” Robin’s exhibition? What does she “take” from the Dennisons?


14. Mrs. Brown’s centerpiece at the gallery is a dragon, a chained lady, and a minuscule plastic knight on horseback in the crannies of a rock. Knowing that Mrs. Brown’s art is inspired by the things she sees, what do you think these three items represent and why?

III. "The Chinese Lobster”: (pg. 89-128)

8. The story specifically points out that the lobster in the tank is female, black in color, and unable to move her heavy pincers and her legs “forward and back.” Upon gazing at the creature, Dr. Himmelblau “feels their painful life” in her bones and towards the end of the story “experiences the pain of alien fish-flesh contracting inside an ex-skeleton.” Why do you think Dr. Himmelblau empathizes with the lobster? What might it represent for her?


9. According to Perry Diss, Matisse sees the purpose of art “to please and to be comfortable” like an armchair. Does the story uphold this same view that art is meant to be a source of comfort and pleasure? Obviously Peggi Nollet does not find comfort or pleasure in Matisse’s paintings of women, and Perry Diss does not find comfort or pleasure in Peggi’s art. Perry Diss says to Dr. Himmelblau that art should be “without any disturbing images.” What is problematic about Perry Diss’s views of what art should be?


10. What do you think that Matisse means when he tells Professor Diss that “black is the colour of light”? The painting La Porte noire has a black door, and Gerda imagines Peggi Nollett sitting in a black room. If deciding to commit suicide is described as being inside a “white box, a white room,” what is the color black supposed to symbolize?


11. Matisse loved to paint voluptuous and wildly colored women. Peggi suffers from anorexia and hides her body under layers of bulky clothing. Is her defacement of Matisse personal? Do you think she sees herself as one of the rotund women in his paintings?


12. Playing in the background of the Chinese restaurant is the song “Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day.” Do you think that the music at the restaurant is ironic given the bleak suicide conversation between Perry Diss and Gerda Himmelblau?


13. At the end of the story, Gerda “in a completely uncharacteristic gesture” kisses Perry Diss and thanks him “for everything.” What do you think Gerda was thanking him for? Since Gerda is the Dean of Women Students, are you surprised by her actions toward Perry Diss, since he comes across as arrogant and insensitive?


14. Dr. Himmelblau and Mr. Diss know that Peggi wants a supervisor “who shares her way of looking at things” and will give her a degree without challenging her assumptions. Should they award Peggi a diploma to keep her from committing suicide or continue to challenge her?

-- Alisha Tynes, UWF Student