Jane Studdock has recently abandoned her academic career to become a stay-at-home wife. She is twenty-three years old. Her husband is Mark Studdock, and she regards him with cold indifference in the beginning of the novel. She has dreams that reveal what is happening in the present within the N.I.C.E., as well as other places. At first she wants these dreams to stop. She is plagued with feelings of resentment, pride, abandonment and loneliness.