The Group (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Group is a 1963 novel by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writer Mary McCarthy
Mary McCarthy (author)
Mary Therese McCarthy was an American author, critic and political activist.- Early life :Born in Seattle, Washington, to Roy Winfield McCarthy and his wife, the former Therese Preston, McCarthy was orphaned at the age of six when both her parents died in the great flu epidemic of 1918...

. It made the New York Times Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...

 in 1963.

Content

In 1933, eight young female friends graduate from Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

. The book describes these women’s lives post-graduation, beginning with the marriage of one of the friends, Kay Strong, and ending with her funeral in 1940. Each character struggles with different issues, including sexism in the work place, child-raising, financial difficulties, family crises, and sexual relationships. Nearly all the women's issues involve the men in their lives: fathers, employers, lovers, or husbands. As highly educated women from affluent backgrounds, they must strive for autonomy and independence in a time when a woman’s role is still largely restricted to marriage and childbirth. The plot is influenced by the political and economic atmosphere of the time. Over the course of the book, the reader learns about the women’s views on contraception, love, sex, socialism, and psychoanalysis.

Characters

Kay Strong: Marries Harald Peterson, who is involved in theater management and stage directing. He writes plays which aren’t produced and is frequently unemployed. She has “a ruthless hatred of poor people,” and is frustrated by their financial situation. She supports them by working at Macy’s and cares greatly about her material surroundings. Her husband has multiple extramarital affairs. She accuses him of being with another woman, and he hits her until she threatens him with a bread knife. The next morning, he commits her to a psychiatric hospital, where she meets her old friend Polly Andrews, who is working there as a nurse. Kay is later freed from the hospital and divorces Harald. Her death at the end of the book is mysterious; no one knows whether she fell from the window on the twentieth floor of the Vassar Club, while airplane spotting, or whether she jumped. Her friends reunite at the end of the novel at her funeral, where they shun Harald.

Mary Prothero, “Pokey”: The wealthiest of group. Described as a “fat, cheerful New York society girl,” “very rich and lazy.” Her father gives her a plane so she is able to commute to Cornell Agricultural School. She eventually marries. Her family has an earnest, eccentric butler named Hatton, who comes to Kay’s funeral.

Dottie Renfrew: Originally from Boston, she is a welfare worker. She goes home with Dick Brown, a poor artist she meets at Kay’s wedding, and loses her virginity to him. He treats her in a brusque and condescending manner, refusing to kiss her and warning her not to fall in love with him. He tells her to get a pessary, or diaphragm
Diaphragm
-Optics and photography:* Diaphragm , a stop in the light path of a lens, having an aperture that regulates the amount of light that passes* Diaphragm shutter, a type of leaf shutter consisting of a number of thin blades in a camera-Acoustics:...

. She is fitted for a diaphragm by a doctor and returns to Dick’s apartment, but he is gone. She waits for him in Washington Square but he doesn’t return, and she goes back to Boston. Dottie eventually marries Brook Latham from Arizona. Before the wedding, she confesses to her mother that she is still in love with Dick. Her mother suggests postponing the wedding and visiting Dick, but Dottie decides to marry Brook anyway.

Elinor Eastlake, “Lakey”: From Lake Forest, Chicago. After Pokey, she is the wealthiest of the group. Described as a “dark beauty,” with pale skin, black hair, and large green eyes. She is largely missing for most of the book, due to her time spent in Europe, where she goes to study art history and get a doctorate. At the end of the book, she returns to America, having fled the war in Europe. She is accompanied by her friend the Baroness, who, it transpires, is her lesbian lover. The group is conflicted over Lakey’s sexual orientation.

Polly Andrews: Her family suffers financial losses due to the Depression. She is pretty, with “almost flaxen hair,” “milk-white skin” and “big blue eyes.” She lives in a building where most of her neighbors are socialists, and she works as a technician in the local hospital. She has an affair with Gus LeRoy, a married publisher, who is going through psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...

 at the request of his wife. Polly doesn’t understand why he needs analysis, and after reading Freud, she decides that she herself needs analysis. Gus eventually leaves Polly and goes back to his wife. Polly’s father, who has just gotten divorced from Polly’s mother and suffers from bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

, comes to live with Polly. Her father converts to Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...

. In the manic phase of his disorder, he overspends their budget, forcing Polly to sell her blood at the hospital. Polly marries Dr. Jim Ridgeley, a psychiatrist, who offers her financial and moral support.

Priss Hartshorn: Marries Dr. Sloan Crockett, a pediatrician. She has a job with the National Recovery Administration
National Recovery Administration
The National Recovery Administration was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices...

. She gives birth to Stephen, whom she has difficulty breast-feeding and potty-training. Her husband wishes her to feed Stephen her breast milk rather than formula, a somewhat radical notion at the time. Priss feels pressured by her husband, thinking, “Sloan…was enamored of his own theories, which he wanted to enforce, like Prohibition, regardless of the human factor.”

Helena Davidson: “A short, sandy haired girl with an appealing snub nose,” Helena was “regarded as the droll member of the group,” because of her sense of humor. Her mother has her “tutored in every conceivable subject,” including athletics, musical instruments, outdoor activities and crafts. Despite her Vassar education, she gets a job as a teacher at an experimental school in Cleveland, Ohio, teaching “finger-painting.” She catches Kay’s husband kissing another woman, Norine, also a graduate of Vassar. She decides not to tell Kay, but goes to Norine’s house to talk to her. Norine’s husband is impotent and Norine has had several affairs. Norine asks Helena how she should fix her life, and Helena makes several suggestions, including scrubbing the floor, painting the sitting room a different color, and buying “some real food.”

Libby MacAusland: A “tall, pretty blonde,” who majored in English and is determined to break into the New York publishing industry. Gus LeRoy, the publisher, hires her to read book manuscripts. For five dollars apiece, she reads the manuscripts and writes a summary and opinion. Libby claims she can read Italian, so Gus gives her an Italian manuscript to summarize. However, the book is mostly in a dialect which she can't understand and she writes an inaccurate report. Gus fires her, telling her that “Publishing’s a man’s business…. Marry a publisher, Miss MacAusland, and be his hostess.” He later gets her a job as a literary agent’s assistant. A Norwegian baron and ski jumper, Nils Aslund, tries to seduce her by reading Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Libby tries to fend him off by quoting Sir Walter Raleigh's "The Shepherdess Replies." Nils replies by ripping her clothes off and attempting to rape her; he desists when she tells him she is a virgin.

Norine Schmittlapp: Went to Vassar, but is not considered a member of “the group.” Talking to Helena, she says, “You people were the aesthetes. We were the politicals.” Norine is interested in psychoanalysis, socialism, and anthropology. She has a dog named Nietzsche. While married to Putnam Blake, she has an affair with Harald, Kay’s husband. Norine’s husband, Put, suffers from impotency; according to Norine, he is only aroused by “fallen women.” Norine helps Harald put Kay in the psychiatric ward by convincing Kay that she needs a rest. She spreads the rumor that Kay was mentally disturbed, saying to Helena, “A lot of basic things were the matter. Sex. Competitiveness with men. An underlying Lesbian drive that was too firmly repressed. Thwarted social strivings.” Norine later divorces Put, and marries Freddy Rogers, a wealthy Jewish banker. She has a son, Ichabod. Priss is horrified by her careless manner of raising Ichabod. Norine tells Priss that her husband expects her to be a dutiful housewife, but Norine says “Our Vassar education made it tough for me to accept my womanly role.” Norine believes that because of her education, she is “crippled for life.”

Background

In some aspects the novel is autobiographical. Mary McCarthy studied literature at Vassar College and graduated in 1933, which is the class year of her group of eight characters. In addition, her first husband, Harald Johnsrud, shares the first name of the husband of the character Kay; the unusual (Nordic) spelling of the name is discussed several times in the novel. McCarthy was also a supporter of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

, a political position shared by another of the characters in the novel, Polly Andrews.

Film adaptation

In 1966 United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

 released a film
The Group (film)
The Group is a 1966 ensemble film directed by Sidney Lumet based on the novel of the same name by Mary McCarthy about a group of female graduates from a Connecticut College-like college during the early 1930s....

 adaptation of McCarthy's novel directed by Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...

. The main characters were played by Candice Bergen
Candice Bergen
Candice Patricia Bergen is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy Murphy Brown , for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama Boston Legal...

 (Lakey), Joan Hackett
Joan Hackett
Joan Ann Hackett was an American actress who appeared on stage, in films, and on television.- Early life :She was born in New York City of Irish and Italian extraction...

 (Dottie), Elizabeth Hartman
Elizabeth Hartman
Mary Elizabeth Hartman was an American actress, best known for her performance in the 1965 film A Patch of Blue, playing a blind girl named Selina D'Arcy, opposite Sidney Poitier, a role for which she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress and was nominated for the Academy...

 (Priss), Shirley Knight
Shirley Knight
Shirley Enola Knight is an American stage, film and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in 1960 for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and in 1962 for Sweet Bird of Youth....

 (Polly), Joanna Pettet
Joanna Pettet
Joanna Pettet is a British actress.-Biography:Her parents, Harold Nigel Edgerton Salmon, a British Royal Air Force pilot killed in World War II, and mother, Cecily J. Tremaine, were married in London in 1940...

 (Kay), Mary-Robin Redd (Pokey), Jessica Walter
Jessica Walter
Jessica Walter is an American actress, known for the films Play Misty for Me, Grand Prix, and for her role as Lucille Bluth on the sitcom Arrested Development...

 (Libby), Kathleen Widdoes
Kathleen Widdoes
-Life and career:Widdoes was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Bernice and Eugene Widdoes. Widdoes moved to New York City to pursue stage work and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris under a Fulbright scholarship. From 1964 to 1972 she was married to well known actor Richard Jordan, with...

 (Helena). The film earned Lumet a Golden Bear
Golden Bear
According to legend, the Golden Bear was a large golden Ursus arctos. Members of the Ursus arctos species can reach masses of . The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are North American subspecies of the Brown Bear....

 nomination at the 1966 Berlinale.

Radio

In 2001, "The Group" was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was adapted by Moya O'Shea, Produced/Directed by Tracey Neale and starred Gayle Hunnicutt
Gayle Hunnicutt
Gayle, Lady Jenkins , known by her birth name Gayle Hunnicutt, is an American actress.-Personal life:Hunnicutt was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of Colonel Sam Lloyd Hunnicutt and Virginia Hunnicutt, and attended the University of California, Los Angeles. She worked as a fashion model...

, Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front is a BAFTA Award–winning English comedian and actress best known for her performances in The Thick of It in the late 2000s, and series of critically acclaimed satirical comedies in the early 1990s: On The Hour, The Day Today and Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge...

, Teresa Gallagher, Joanna Weir, Tara Ward, Laurel Lefkow, Lorelei King, Moya O'Shea, Mark Caven, Henry Goodman
Henry Goodman
Henry Goodman is a British theatre actor. He trained at RADA in London alongside Jonathan Pryce.In 1988, he played George Green's brother-in-law Cyril in London's Burning. He played character roles in episodes of the popular UK police drama The Bill...

 and William Hope.

Popular culture references

The book appears in episode ten, season three of the television series Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...

.
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