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The novel is set against the backdrop of the Red Scare and McCarthyism. How do these historical events impact the lives and choices of the characters?
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The goal of Joe McCarthy and men like him is control. If one controls thought and speech, the authoritarian controls much more. Without getting into current U.S. politics, that is the playbook of the current U.S. administration most clearly evident in its demands of universities and law firms.
Quote from today’s NYT, ““This is what Joe McCarthy was trying to do magnified ten- or 100-fold,” said Lawrence H. Summers, a former Harvard president, adding that “it runs directly against the university’s role in a free society.”
Arlene drank the Kool-aid, convinced that McCarthy was justified and fighting to protect others. For Arlene, the authoritarian is a source of security, albeit a false one. It gives her a connection that she is unable to establish on her own.
Reka and Grace understand what McCarthy is doing and what his campaign of intimidation does, to them and in general. They have lived under authoritarian regimes and know how they play out if given the opportunity to do so. They don’t broadcast their resistance but it is there. They recognize it allows them to live the lives they do. “Not that the land of the free was a perfect land.” They see its imperfections and step up for one another.
Harland Adams figures things out, moving from all communists are dangerous to questioning his FBI role and eventually covering for Grace and Arlene. Eventually, all of the members of the Briar Club do.
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Since Reka was Hungarian and once a member of the communist party it had to be very frightening for her living in the States during this time. I imagine she was always looking over her shoulder and worried about who might turn her in. And, of course it was Arlene who did just that costing Reka her meager wages. It was also tragic that she had to “sell” artistic treasures to a senator to secure her safe passage to the States during a time when she should have been welcomed with open arms not fleeced by an elected government official. Once again Reka has to figure out how to survive. In order to do so she must become a thief and steal back valuables from the Senator who took them from her.
Grace, was on the run from her heritage. Her dad was a Russian and her mom was Ukrainian living in Leningrad during Stalin’s regime. After Grace’s family starved to death she had no where to go and no reason to stay in Russia. Not knowing how else to get out of Russia she entered training to become a communist spy in the States. Now Grace is the enemy within America that McCarthy was preaching about. The fact that she always carried weapons indicated her concern during that time of hate and unrest that someday she might have to physically defend herself. But Grace had a naturally heightened ability to observe human behaviors. She used her talents to find her neighbor’s patterns of behavior which helped her ease some of the tensions in their lives. By doing so she brought the residents of Briarwood House together which helped them form a circle of friendship and a sense of family. In the end these new friendships, this new family, served as her safety net.
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Mrs. Nilsson goes through the suitcases of those renting her rooms, looking for evidence of the renter using dope, being a floozy or a Communist; she views her establishment as more refined because of the name Briarwood House. Otherwise, she pretty much ignores anything that doesn’t directly impact her life.
Arlene has the latest gossip about who are named Communists. She leaves a copy of Red Channels for Pete’s mother. Arlene sees reds everywhere which Grace identifies as paranoia. Probably because of the war games in her hometown where she slept with the “enemy” and her work for the House Un-American Activities Committee.
For Nora, working at the National Archives and everything it protects (especially The Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution) give her hope in the beginning of a new decade.
Grace’s illegal TV provides an outside view and, I think, for Grace, allows her to keep track of what McCarthy is doing and how that might affect her day-to-day life. She names the orange cat Red. Although Grace is Comrade Galina Stepanova of the USSR, she comes to realize that she did not have it in herself to harm people in the US. All the propaganda she had been fed were lies. So, she walked away with a new identity and made a home in a room with green walls and Thursday night suppers with friends.
Reka was a “card-carrying member of the Communist Party in Germany before the war.” She says that “Communists are as dangerous as garden snails. Just college boys who think quoting Marx and drinking vodka makes them rebels.” They thought that the children who were starving deserved more than they were getting. The Communists and Socialists were the first rounded up by Hitler. Reka is fired from her job at Smoot Library because of Communist sympathies, but it motivates her to go after what had been stolen from her.
Fliss, Grace and Claude Cormier are in an unsegregated club when a riot spills into the club and the word COMMUNIST is painted on the windows. Fliss wonders why. “Because Communist is the ugliest insult we Americans seem to know right now, Grace said. Thank you, Senator McCarthy.”
Claire coped with Senator McCarthy by keeping out of his way and not sticking out her neck. “You didn’t square up to bullies and spit in their eye; you let them careen on past you waving their list of enemies and Communists and what have you.” It is Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s speech standing up to the bully McCarthy that finally motivates Claire to help the woman she loves to stand up to her bully husband.
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Great points about Reka Nancy. I know that the United States was very worried after WWII that the communist parties in many European countries would grow stronger after so much destruction and death at the hands of the fascists so they worked at promising Europe military protection and defence so those countries could pour money into rebuilding their economies and into the social programs that the European citizens were demanding for their welfare and security (so much of the roots of WWII came from inequality and people starving and struggling to survive from post WWI and economic collapse). It’s such a strange echo now, to see the current administration pulling away that military protection from the EU, under the notion that the US can’t afford it.
And I so agree, with your points Jane. Troubling parallels with today and the power plays going on with the universities and the “witch-hunting” of students and green-card holders etc. It’s not communists but simply “foreigners” but now appears to be also including “dissenters.” There are sadly so many real people out there with Arlene’s attitude.
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Fascinating posts from everyone! I don’t have much to add on Grace, Reka and the other heroines as you all have provided wonderful points about them. Nancy, I am glad you highlighted Fliss, Grace and Claude’s scare at the club – for me that scene highlighted how the communist scare was often used as an excuse to cover an ugly racism and xenophobia underneath. McCarthyism and the Red Scare really impacted Arlene quite drastically. She’s caught up in the ideology and her behaviour is most influenced by it. Unlike Claire, Grace, Fliss, and Reka, Arlene isn’t scared by McCarthyism but wields the ideology like a weapon. But she doesn’t know how dangerous a weapon it is until too late. So I’d say, unlike the other characters who are scared of being harmed and exposed, and make their choices accordingly (but eventually with courage), Arlene’s ignorance leads her to essentially kill someone! Certainly a cautionary tale about embracing destructive ideologies like McCarthyism.
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