Heart the Lover

Dr. Gastrell’s residence, known as the Breach House, is a symbol of both the exclusionary literary milieu of 1980s academia and the environment in which the characters’ intellectual and emotional lives are forged during college. The narrator’s first impression is of a scholarly haven, “a large study out of an old movie—four walls of floor-to-ceiling books, a big, thick-legged desk, and a leather chair before the fireplace” (8). While it is a regular location for the narrator because of the friend group, it also represents a form of financial stability, safety, and support that she hasn’t yet had in life. It’s an environment she yearns for yet, in some ways, resents. She notes that a professor like Dr. Gastrell—who represents a very traditional, passionate scholar—would never offer her his home, as she’s a woman, and their relationship couldn’t function the same as it does with his male students. She envies that the boys are given a high-quality, free home in which to study, despite being from middle- to upper-middle class backgrounds and needing it less, and this alludes to how writing has long been a domain that excludes women and the working class. Those who already have privileges are given further advantage; she must work numerous jobs and live in a shoddy home while being given less attention by her professor.