Separating Professional and Personal Lives

Many characters throughout the novel aim to separate their professional and personal lives because they are unable to present a unified picture of themselves -- to others or to themselves -- while being entirely honest. Harry is the prime example of this attitude. Harry is desperate to keep her family from learning about her profession; she even tells her mother and David that she works in recruitment. Later, she is desperate to keep her work a secret after Becky and Ron find out what she does for a living. Becky’s seriousness about hiding her work from her relatives simultaneously makes her vulnerable and creates more difficulties in her life. Yet Becky cannot tell her mother the truth about her profession because it will shatter the ideas that Miriam has about her daughter, ideas that have only recently become more positive.

Becky...