Looking for Jane

Part 4 opens with a major development in the subplot of the legal fight for access to abortion in Canada. The details are historically accurate. The 1988 Supreme Court decision in the case of R v. Morgentaler held that the laws criminalizing abortion were unconstitutional, violating women’s rights to “security of the person.” Evelyn summarizes the decision when she is thinking of her friends who protested with her in the 1970s: “[H]ow lucky they are to be in Ottawa tonight, right down in the thick of things near the seat of power that’s determined she’s no longer a criminal” (304). This decriminalization of abortion is a big development for the nation but also for the characters, whose lives have been profoundly shaped by questions of Bodily Autonomy and Reproductive Rights. Evelyn and Nancy have been working with the Jane Network for many years. Although Evelyn does not plan to stop providing abortions, she will no longer be committing a crime when she does her job; the need to seek Justice Under Unjust Systems has been rendered obsolete, and the characters are safer and happier as a result. Angela in particular has benefited from the results of this legal development because she needed an abortion clinic’s care when she experienced a miscarriage in her attempts to have a child with Tina.

A shift in the structural pattern of the novel coincides with the plot twist. When Evelyn reveals that her real name is Maggie, the following chapter is titled “Maggie.” For the first time in the novel, the narrative skips backward in time. Chapter 29 revisits 1961 to fill in what happened after the events of Chapter 10. This break in the narrative’s established pattern mirrors the surprise that has just been revealed; the form and the content sync up.

The events and revelations of Part 4 underscore the importance of setting. Young Maggie’s choice to fake her own death and take on the name of her friend, Evelyn, is something that would be very difficult in the 21st century (as Angela and Evelyn discuss in Chapter 30). This important plot point relies on the historical setting of Maggie’s stay at St. Agnes’s: a time when recordkeeping and document checking were analog (there are no digital records to follow Maggie) and when the lives of young unwed mothers were of little social or political importance.

As names are so closely associated with self-identity, the motif of naming illuminates the resolutions of the characters’ arcs and internal conflicts. When Nancy and Michael meet, and Nancy unburdens herself of her secrets, she says to him, “I need to tell you about Jane” (332). The name “Jane” stands in for a lot in this sentence: both her work with the Jane Network and the story of her birth, as she was named Jane by her birth mother, Maggie. Nancy’s remark is therefore equivalent to telling Michael, “I need to tell you about myself and my secrets.” At the end of Chapter 31, Nancy also invites Evelyn to call her Jane, reaffirming the connection between the name and Nancy’s identity. The motif of naming plays into the resolution of Evelyn’s internal conflict as well. In telling her story to Angela, she draws a distinction between taking her friend’s name and taking her friend’s identity: “I didn’t assume her identity. We didn’t look much alike. It’s more like I assumed her dreams, her future. I embodied it for both of us since she couldn’t fulfill it anymore” (361). Using the name “Evelyn” allowed Maggie to start a new future, building an identity for herself. Here, the name symbolizes autonomy and agency—Evelyn’s ability to control her own fate.

The secret motif is also key to Part 4, with secrets coming up in conversation frequently. As Nancy reveals her secrets to Michael and their daughter, and as Evelyn reveals her secret to Angela, the novel invites readers to consider the way secrets can both harm and protect. Nancy reflects on the two different opinions that her adoptive parents offered about secrets. They kept the secret of her adoption from her for her whole life, and her father expressed the opinion that secrets are best kept: “But it’s like most secrets, Nancy. It’s better for us to be left wondering if there’s something inside the box, or if it’s just air. It’s better for us not to know” (315). On the other hand, her mother came to regret the tension that secrets created in their family life: “If I have learned anything from this, it is not to keep secrets. They fester like wounds, and take even longer to heal once the damage sets in. It’s permanent and crippling, and I want more for you than that” (327). Contrasting these two opinions with each other encourages readers to consider their own feelings about keeping and revealing secrets. For Nancy, weighing these two opinions helps her conclude that she wants to reveal her secrets to liberate herself and try to reestablish trust in her relationship with Michael. At the end of the novel, both Evelyn and Nancy have revealed their secrets to positive results; sharing their secrets allowed them to find each other.