Claire vs. Zora and some thoughts on body image

So one of the things that really struck me while reading this part of the book is the different ways that Claire and Zora think about college. Claire sort of has this disdain for the factual knowledge that people apparently go to college to learn, even in her own domain of writing. She doesn't particularly enjoy teaching and I think she is wondering how she got to where she is now. She hates university politics. When Jack threatens to take away her ability to teach non-Wellingtons she sort of considers what her teaching would be like if she were not allowed to foster talent the way she does now. I think her perspective on college as a place to find who you are is evidenced by her willingness to put forth this opportunity to whoever strikes her as a writer.

Zora, on the other hand, as a very no-nonsense approach to college which is kind of in line with the college culture here at CMU. She is always looking for whatever she can do in college that will propel her towards whatever her ultimate goal is, which includes grad school and probably going on to be a professor like her father. She is intensely political when it comes to her education. She is not really enjoying herself at college and she isn't exploring any possibilities for herself outside of the course she thinks that she has to take. She is all about facts and theories, and Claire seems to think that she doesn't have a creative bone in her body.

Another issue that I thought was interesting is Kiki's weight and body image more generally. The issue is brought up when Kiki and howard have that big argument about the affair, and then later, when we start seeing certain scenes from Claire's perspective we see this sort of disdain for overweight people. Kiki also talks about the looks that she gets when she eats in public, and how they had kept her from eating out more often before. Claire thinks about Zora's gaining weight as moving in the same direction as Kiki, and she silently approves of the girls' sparse dinner choices. Kiki also is concerned about Zora, and we learn about her disapproval of makeup and woman's magazines. I feel like this discourse in the novel about body image is important because it raises the question of what it actually means for a woman like Kiki to feel beautiful versus what this means for a woman like Claire. Howard made the comment that men gravitate toward beauty and that is what brought him to Claire, while Levi disapproves of this substitution, and Carl says big girls need love too, so the opinions of the male characters in this debate are mixed. Carlene also comments on Kiki's weight, but she seems neither to approve nor disapprove, and I think she does say that Kiki bears herself in a way that makes her beautiful. Zora has a pretty clear disapproval of Kiki's size and I think it goes along with the fact that she sides with her father. Smith doesn't give us any clear indications of where she stands on the whole body image issue, but I think it ties in directly with what she is trying to say about race and what it means to be black. She is also making a statement about what it means for a woman to be bautiful.