Margery Benson

Margery Benson is the protagonist of the novel. When we first meet Margery, she is a deeply lonely and anti-social person. Nevertheless, she likes to believe she “wasn’t someone who gave into weakness” (61). This supposed strength manifests itself in peculiar ways. For one, Margery is incapable of crying. She does not even cry at her mother’s funeral. This changes during her first night in the mountain, when she sobs herself to sleep. Similarly, Margery has a fear of blood. She runs away from Enid when Enid has her miscarriage. Margery overcomes this fear in the end, by helping Enid give birth to Gloria.

Margery sometimes limps, on account of her hip pain. She recognizes herself instantly in the note she intercepts from her students as the “lumpy old woman” in the caricature (11). The narrator says, “Margery was a big woman. She knew that. And she...