The Book Club for Troublesome Women
58 pages • 1-hour read
Marie BostwickThe Book Club for Troublesome Women
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Character Analysis
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness and death by suicide.
Margaret Ryan
Margaret Ryan is one of the main characters of the book and arguably the protagonist, as the narration most closely follows her story and begins and ends with her perspective. At the start of the book, in 1963, Margaret is a 33-year-old homemaker living in Concordia, a planned suburb in Virginia, with three children and a husband. Besides instigating the formation of the Betty Friedan book club, Margaret also goes on to become a professional writer, first as a columnist for a magazine, and later with reputed publications as well.
Although Margaret is introduced as a “housewife” who is entirely immersed in domestic life, there are early hints that she enjoys intellectual exertion and worthwhile work outside the home and is not entirely satisfied with her role as a wife and mother. The opening chapters showcase tension between Margaret and Walt rooted in this dissatisfaction, and flashbacks reveal that Margaret excelled academically when she was at university. This background contextualizes the draw that the essay competition holds for Margaret, and later the joy and sense of purpose she derives from her work as a columnist for A Woman’s Place—Margaret enjoys and feels a sense of self-worth from doing meaningful work that is outside of her prescribed social roles.
This hidden unconventionality is not limited to Margaret’s latent desire for meaning outside the domestic sphere. On the surface, Margaret is seen by the others as a happy, well-settled woman, exuding an optimism bordering on idealism—Charlotte, for instance, considers Margaret a “Pollyanna.” However, Margaret has experienced heartbreak and trauma of her own; her mother died by suicide. Margaret still has traumatic nightmares about her mother’s death and carries immense, unwarranted guilt at not having been able to prevent it.
Once this background is revealed, Margaret’s mother’s death becomes a defining moment in the character’s backstory that explains Margaret’s most prominent character traits. She feels a general sense of responsibility towards others in her life: She takes her promise to Denise very seriously, checking in on Charlotte constantly once Denise leaves for Oxford. Similarly, despite loving the financial independence and the chance to flex her writing skills, Margaret feels limited by the things she is allowed to write for A Woman’s Place, constantly feeling that her writing is not serious enough. Margaret’s mother’s death also explains why she is more attuned than most around her to a lingering dissatisfaction with her life—she has seen in her mother what a sense of unfulfillment can lead to, and she is more prepared and willing to take action about it.
This is how the Betty Friedan book club is born, ultimately: out of Margaret’s desire to find kindred spirits in women who feel the same as her. However, alongside Margaret’s intellectual drive and desire for more, she is also an inherently sensitive and caring person, as evidenced by how she feels responsible for the people around her. This quality ensures that, rather than making her feel angry about the state of her life, the book club opens her eyes to how others, including men, are trapped in the same patriarchal net, just in different ways. Rather than causing a permanent rift between herself and Walt, the temporary tension between the two is resolved partly due to Margaret’s desire to understand and fix things rather than blame and shun.
Margaret’s character arc is ultimately one of self-realization and actualization, but along a gentle and nuanced trajectory. The most rebellious act she commits is sending in her article about The Feminine Mystique to A Woman’s Place, but even this she does only after edits that make it as amenable as possible to her editor. Ultimately, Margaret is a character focused on bringing change through evolution rather than revolution, and she does so through a combination of her talent, intellectual curiosity, and indestructible empathy.
Charlotte Gustafson
Charlotte Gustafson is one of the main characters in the book. At the start of the book, she is 39 years old and married to Howard Gustafson. The daughter of a wealthy businessman, Charlotte’s marriage was arranged to Howard, then one of her father’s managers at the firm, after she got pregnant at 21. While there is no love lost between Charlotte and Howard, she is a caring and loving mother. She is also an aspiring artist with dreams of exhibiting her work someday. Charlotte also has anxiety, which she initially keeps secret from her friends.
Charlotte is a vivacious and fiery personality, and she is partly a catalyst for the formation of the Betty Friedan book club. Her disregard for social norms is what initially catches Margaret’s eye when she spots Charlotte blatantly admitting to using antianxiety medication at a pharmacy. Charlotte’s boldness draws Margaret to her, and it is Charlotte who suggests the first book for the book club: The Feminine Mystique. Charlotte is also the one who pushes the Bettys—the other members of the book club—to think deeper about their own lives and the constrictions placed on them by social norms, forcing them to recognize the relevance of Friedan’s writing to their lives.
Despite Charlotte’s bluster, she is insecure and terrified of the consequences of rebelling in her own way. Despite Howard’s many and persistent infidelities, she refuses to address them or ask for a divorce; her fear is rooted in the well-founded belief that her parents will take away her money and her children if she does not behave as expected. However, Charlotte is not presented as a coward, merely less self-aware and more insecure than she needs to be. When Margaret confronts her about her hypocrisies about her commitment to her art and her questionable decisions about her marriage, Charlotte displays an admirable capacity for both self-reflection and bravery: Not only does she give art a real chance, but she also eventually leaves Howard with her money, children, and reputation intact.
These incidents in Charlotte’s arc shine a light on her resilience, intelligence, and generosity. Once faced with the truth, she has the magnanimity to acknowledge and thank Margaret for her honesty and friendship; she also finds a way to take back power from the controlling men in her life in a way that keeps her ideals intact but outsmarts the men at their own game. Charlotte is intelligent enough to use manipulation as a means to an end but has enough integrity to preserve the values that are important to her. She is also honest and resilient enough to recognize when one course of action will not serve her any longer and find a way to succeed in some other way. At the end of the novel, she is shown to have met with substantial success throughout her career as an art gallery owner rather than an artist, and though she passes on before the end of the book, she is remembered fondly by her friends.
Vivian “Viv” Buschetti
Vivian “Viv” Buschetti is one of the main characters of the book. She is Margaret’s closest friend in Concordia at the start of the book and is one of the “Bettys” when the book club begins operations. Viv is the mother of six children and is happily married to Anthony “Tony” Buschetti, an officer working for the Pentagon. She was a nurse during the war, and over the course of the book, she makes a brief return to nursing, as well as has a seventh and unexpected child.
Viv is a bundle of contradictions as a character: She deeply loves her husband and her children and feels no dissatisfaction in her role as wife and mother; she also yearns to return to the workforce now that her kids are slightly older. Despite this, Viv is the most resistant out of the four “Bettys” to the book club and Friedan’s writing, insisting that the ideas are irrelevant in her own life. In fact, the only reason Viv joins the book club is not to disappoint Margaret. Simultaneously, and perhaps because of her skepticism about Friedan’s book, she is able to spot those women and parts of the population excluded from Friedan’s ideas, such as single mothers and women of color.
Viv’s character offers a glimpse of the different kinds of lives and choices that women can inhabit. Her joy in motherhood and domestic life coexists alongside her ability to derive satisfaction from her work. She is a skilled and capable nurse but is also unwilling to compromise on her family for the sake of her career; she quits her job well before her baby is born when she realizes that she actually does want to spend more time with her family. However, Viv also returns to nursing after the children are grown up, spending years on a hospital ship alongside Tony. Tony is an important part of Viv’s story, as he is a deeply supportive husband to her in every choice she makes, exhibiting pride and respect for Viv at every turn. Viv’s character is a reminder that multiple motivations can coexist: joy and fulfillment within (or despite) oppressive systems, and a desire for more despite the apparent contentment with one’s life.
Theodora Leonora “Bitsy” Cobb
Theodora Leonora “Bitsy” Cobb is one of the main characters in the book. She is the youngest of the “Bettys,” and is initially considered by them to be fairly quiet and meek. Bitsy is married to Dr. Kingsley “King” Cobb, an equine veterinarian; however, while King expects Bitsy to be merely his wife and soon a mother for his children, Bitsy secretly harbors a dream of becoming an equine vet herself.
Of the four main characters, Bitsy is the one with the least family support or stability: Margaret and Viv both have their husbands and children, and while Charlotte despises her husband and parents, she adores her children. By contrast, Bitsy does not have parents she can fall back on, as her father died when she was in university, or an understanding and supportive husband. She only married King because she thought she had no other choice after her father died and she was refused letters of support for medical school, thus having no job prospects. For this reason, Bitsy is initially the quietest of the Bettys, not having ever been given the space to tap into her own desires.
However, Bitsy does eventually grow extremely vocal about her dissatisfaction and resentment with her life. She displays a sense of independence in how she defies King in treating Delilah, Mrs. Graham’s horse, and is overjoyed and relieved when King eventually leaves her for the server he impregnated. Being young and relatively untethered to familial responsibilities, Bitsy becomes an example of the possibilities for young women who choose to follow their dream: Not only does she go on to medical school and become a successful equine vet but she also marries and has children, albeit when she is ready and willing to do so.
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