60 pages • 2 hours read
Marie BenedictThe Only Woman in the Room
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Book Club Questions
Tools
BetaPart 1, Chapters 22-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1
Chapter 22 Summary
Six months later, Hedy has an escape plan. She waits until Fritz leaves for a business trip and then invites Ferdinand Starhemberg for tea, “a man known for his vapidity and lack of foresight” (119). She wears her most form-fitting dressing gown and takes pleasure in his stunned look when he walks in. After offering him schnapps instead of tea, she confesses her love for Ferdinand and kisses him, despite finding him “repugnant” (123). She pulls away and begs him to take her to her friend’s house in Budapest where they can be safely alone. Enamored and lustful, Ferdinand agrees. They take the first-class train to Budapest, but when the train arrives, Fritz is waiting on the platform. After Ferdinand flees wordlessly, Fritz slaps Hedy, pushes her into the back of the car, and rapes her.
Chapter 23 Summary
Hedy spends the next six months invisible to her house guests, who still only perceive her as “Fritz’s vapid wife” (127). This, though, allows her to overhear military plans. To Fritz, she is only more visible. His desire undiminished, he “asserted dominion” (127) over her body every night. One night in July of 1937, Fritz tells Hedy that she will not need to attend that evening’s dinner party. Confused, Hedy politely accepts but sneaks down to eavesdrop later that night. There, she realizes that her husband is meeting with the leaders of the Nazi Party—including Hitler himself. She is surprised to hear pleading in Fritz’s voice and alarmed to hear him refer to Hitler as “Führer” (131). She is horrified to hear about Hitler’s decision to exempt Fritz and Hedy from his plans to “permanently remove Jews from German society” (131). With the help of Fritz’s weapons, Hitler would take Austria and destroy the Jewish race.
Chapter 24 Summary
Two months later, Hedy has another escape plan. Before she leaves, she must fulfill her promise to her father by attempting to take her mother with her. Her mother, however, is adamant that she could never leave her home. She is also adamant that Hedy’s father was wrong to instill his “political musings” in his daughter because she was not “his son” (135). Hurt, Hedy demands to know why her mother never liked her but is denied. Instead, her mother simply replies that their teatime is over and leaves the room. Having attempted to communicate with her headstrong mother, Hedy feels she has done all she can to protect her and must now leave her behind.
Chapter 25 Summary
Before dressing for that evening’s dinner party, Hedy asks Fritz with “practiced nonchalance” (138) if she can wear the Cartier jewels with her navy gown. When he agrees, she must hide her joy at her plan falling into place; she needs to wear the most expensive jewels if she plans to escape. Her new maid Laura readies her for the evening—a maid Hedy intentionally hired because of their physical similarities—and Hedy asks her to have tea with her after dinner. After the second course, Hedy begins to feign discomfort. When she tells Fritz she’s feeling unwell, he is hopeful and attentive, having been wishing for her to be pregnant for a while now.
Hedy returns to her room. Laura is surprised to see her early but has the tea ready. While her maid is occupied, Hedy sneaks a sleeping drought into Laura’s tea and offers to stir in honey for her. Once Laura has fallen into a deep slumber, Hedy moves into the next stage of her plan: She pulls a maid’s outfit out of the back of her closet, puts it on, and stashes the jewels and hoarded money into her coat. She assumes Laura’s gait, sneaks through the empty servant’s door, and drives off in Laura’s car. She drives to the train station, boards a train to Paris, then a train to Calais, and, finally, a boat to London.
Part 1, Chapters 22-25 Analysis
The themes of performativity and masks are explored further in Chapter 22 as Hedy relies on her acting experience for her first escape attempt. This act, though higher stakes, is an echo of her former life; she rehearses lines, chooses a leading man, and dons a wardrobe to enhance her performance. Most significantly, the chapter shows Hedy relearning to weaponize her sexuality against the men who endeavor to conquer it. For a moment, it works. However, when Fritz appears, she is reminded of his far-reaching power and all-seeing eyes. Again, he punishes her with sexual assault because it is, in his view, the most effective reminder that he possesses her.
He carries this into Chapter 23: “[A]s long as he conquered me physically, he still owned me” (127). Hedy categorizes this as desire, but it is not. Rather, Fritz’s desperation to claim and reclaim Hedy’s body is about power; by subjecting her to him physically, he humiliates and violates her. By comparing Hedy’s body to a country where Fritz “assert[s] dominion” (127), Benedict analogizes Fritz’s assaults to the fascism that is ravaging Europe. Chapter 23 documents the spread of this fascism through Fritz’s meeting with Hitler; Hedy’s greatest fears—which are representative of the individuals made vulnerable by the fascist regimes—are realized when Hitler is brought into her home. This visit is revealing of Fritz’s desperation to retain his power by any means, but also symbolically marks the unofficial Nazi invasion; by being invited into the home of one the highest ranking Austrians, Hitler was essentially been invited into Austria. For the sake of the narrative, it marks Hedy finally understanding that Fritz cannot protect her and will be directly responsible for the next stages in Hitler’s plan.
Chapter 24 portrays the tension between Hedy and her mother that has always hindered a relationship between them. It also demonstrates the gendered expectations her mother has projected unto Hedy. Her mother’s refusal to leave is actually involved in her desire to uphold her wifely duties even after the death of her husband—she cannot abandon the home or the life they once had. Her disappointment in Hedy adopting her father’s political preoccupations is reflective of society’s impression that women are not to worry about such things. Here, the two women serve as foils, Hedy’s modern mind at constant conflict with her mother’s traditionalism. The interaction also offers Hedy that last bit of knowledge that she needs—that she cannot stay to protect her mother. The promise to her father had held her back in Austria for so long, but with her mother’s refusal to leave, she is permitted to leave her behind.
Chapter 25 demonstrates Hedy’s ingenuity and ability to effectively deceive. The Cartier jewels, again, serve a symbolic end; they will fund her escape and are the first jewels Fritz purchased for Hedy, before she was Mrs. Mandl. By reappropriating his wedding gift to achieve her escape from him, Hedy recovers her identity outside of the marriage and rejects the price she paid for those jewels. Moreover, she outmaneuvers Fritz by using his underestimation of her own intelligence against him. Despite already having attempted an escape, Fritz is still more willing to believe that he has a simple wife who may be expecting, which blinds him from seeing the rest of the plan before him. Finally, Hedy uses her appearance against Fritz by choosing a look-alike maid. Her decision—and subsequent success—proves that no one ever looked too closely at her, that she was always background decoration for Fritz’s home.
Related Titles
By Marie Benedict
