Chapter 43 "The Tango" – Summary and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
Iris describes her wedding photograph, noting the distance she feels from the girl in the picture. The ceremony and reception unfold with Laura sabotaging every group portrait. After the wedding, Richard takes her to the Royal York Hotel for their bridal afternoon. Iris recounts her painful and bewildering sexual initiation, and learns later that Richard considered her lack of enjoyment desirable. They travel to New York, dining with a sycophantic couple, then cross the Atlantic on the Berengeria. Iris suffers seasickness and watches a cabaret featuring a tango performance that feels more like a battle. She walks the deck alone, feeling neglected, and throws a copper penny overboard without making a wish.
Key Events
- The wedding photograph: Iris describes the bride as a stranger, with Laura ruining the posed pictures by scowling or blurring her face.
- Reenie embraces Iris after the ceremony, saying “If only your mother was here,” leaving Iris uncertain of the meaning.
- Richard and Iris spend their wedding afternoon at the Royal York Hotel; Iris endures a painful and confusing sexual encounter.
- Richard reveals his belief that a woman’s lack of sexual pleasure was desirable because it would keep her faithful.
- The couple travels to New York, dining with a couple who clearly owe Richard favours. Iris observes the awkwardness of marriage in the older woman’s forced chatter.
- On the Berengeria, Iris is severely seasick; Richard urges her to appear at breakfast for appearances.
- At a shipboard cabaret, Iris watches a singer in a blue spotlight, a piano player, and a tango act that she interprets as a battle between wounded partners.
- On the third day, Iris walks the deck alone, feeling neglected, and throws a copper penny into the sea without making a wish.
Character Development
Iris
Iris continues to develop as a retrospective narrator who understands her younger self’s naivety. She describes the wedding picture with detachment, acknowledging the gap between the girl in satin and the woman writing. Her sexual ignorance leaves her shocked and pained, yet she internalizes Richard’s attitude that her suffering is normal. At the cabaret, she shows newfound critical awareness, recognizing the singer’s lack of freedom and the tango dancers’ hidden wounds. Yet she still feels powerless and lonely, unable to fully assert herself.
Richard
Richard’s controlling nature emerges more plainly. He chooses the honeymoon activities, dictates Iris’s appearance, and expects her to perform as a well-behaved wife. His belief that a woman’s sexual aversion is a safeguard against infidelity reveals his possessive and misogynistic worldview. He enjoys the deference of the New York couple and scans rooms for envy. The telegrams he receives but keeps locked suggest business or perhaps illicit dealings.
Laura
Though absent from the core events, Laura’s presence looms through the wedding photographs. Her deliberate sabotage of the pictures hints at her disapproval or resentment of the marriage. She refuses to catch the bouquet.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Disillusionment and Performance
The wedding itself is a performance: the posed photographs, the “beautiful bride” caption, the elaborate going-away outfit. Iris is already disillusioned, calling herself “beyond such childishness.” The cabaret sequence amplifies this theme: the singer in the spotlight is trapped in her act, and the tango dancers perform a violent simulation of intimacy. Iris concludes that being “in the spotlight” is a form of humiliation.
Marriage as Transaction
Richard’s behavior reduces marriage to a contract. He values Iris’s youth as a status symbol, and his sexual attitudes treat her body as property. The New York couple’s deference and the woman’s “warn” comment underline that marriage is a business arrangement, not a romantic union. Even Reenie’s ambiguous “if only your mother was here” suggests the wedding might have been halted.
The Tango as Metaphor
The tango act is described as “more like a battle than a dance,” with the dancers eyeing each other “glitteringly, waiting for a chance to bite.” This mirrors Iris’s own marriage: a struggle for dominance, performed for an audience, leaving both participants wounded. The “crippled bull” music emphasizes a lurching, painful rhythm.
The Ocean and Emptiness
Iris’s walk on the deck and her attempt to feel profound about the ocean ends in failure. She cannot recall a poem; she throws a penny without a wish. This moment underscores her emotional numbness and her sense of being adrift, without agency or purpose.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 43 crystallizes the central dynamic of Iris’s first marriage. It provides the most explicit account of Richard’s misogyny and Iris’s sexual trauma, which will shape her later actions and her eventual rebellion. The cabaret scene introduces the tango as a key symbol for the novel’s exploration of performance, power, and hidden violence in relationships. Iris’s detachment from her younger self also deepens the novel’s concern with memory and identity.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Iris describe the bride in the wedding photograph as “not me”? What does this reveal about her narrative perspective?
Iris emphasizes the distance between her present self and the girl she once was. This reflects the memoir’s structure: the older Iris interprets and re-evaluates past events. It also suggests trauma—she disowns the version of herself who endured the wedding and its aftermath.
2. How does the cabaret tango act parallel Iris’s marriage to Richard?
The tango is staged as a combat between two dancers who look wounded. Iris sees it as an act, but the hidden injuries are real. Similarly, her marriage appears polished in public (the photos, the dinner) but is founded on domination and pain. The dancers’ impassive faces mirror the forced composure Iris must maintain as a wife.
3. What is the significance of Iris throwing a copper penny without making a wish?
Iris wants to perform a symbolic gesture, but the act is hollow. She cannot even formulate a wish, revealing her emotional depletion and lack of hope. The penny—a low-value coin—emphasizes how little she feels her actions matter. This moment foreshadows her continued powerlessness in the marriage.