45 pages • 1 hour read
Rachel JoyceMiss Benson's Beetle
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Margery Benson
Margery Benson is a tall, overweight home economics teacher in her late 40s with a bad hip. She is methodical and likes to be prepared for all of life’s eventualities. Her sole ambition is to find a rare golden beetle that is only known to exist in New Caledonia. Witnessing her father’s death by suicide when she was 10 left Margery traumatized, and at the start of the novel she represses her emotions and generally keeps herself from getting involved in other people’s lives. A failed teenage romance with her professor only increased her desire to hide her emotions.
Over the course of the novel, Margery undergoes a radical transformation in her outlook as well as her clothing. Initially, she wears dowdy but sensible ladies’ suits, except for a pith helmet and athletic boots that she assumes she will need in the jungle. Once on the island without her luggage, she is forced to don men’s clothing, which she finds quite liberating. Soon, she strides purposefully up and down a mountain in search of her elusive bug, having gained confidence and self-determination by resisting social conventions and following her dream.
The change in Margery’s attitude is largely because of her exposure to the free-spirited Enid. Although emotionally isolated and withdrawn for much of her life, Margery develops a rich friendship with Enid and cares for Enid’s infant daughter. By the end of the novel, Margery has found a new family by raising baby Gloria and fulfilled her lifelong ambition of tracking down rare species of insects.
Enid Pretty
At the beginning of the novel, Enid is the antithesis of Margery in every respect. She is in her 20s, petite, blond, and wears too much makeup. Enid is a non-stop talker who is also very fond of male companionship. Enid does not feel the limits of social convention, preferring to live life on her own terms. She first agrees to work for Margery to escape a false murder charge but soon proves useful to her buttoned-down employer. Although Margery initially thinks that Enid is flighty and disorderly, she soon learns that Enid is resourceful enough to find solutions to problems that Margery sees as insurmountable. As Enid proves her intelligence, bravery, and creative problem-solving, she also opens up to Margery about her troubled past and how she helped her husband end his life at his request.
Enid is firmly convinced that both she and Margery have vocations in life. Despite enduring 10 miscarriages, Enid believes that she is meant to become a mother. Likewise, she believes that Margery is meant to find her golden beetle. Enid never gives up on this conviction, even when Margery is ready to quit. By the end of the novel, Enid succeeds in fulfilling her vocation by delivering Gloria. Although she is killed by Mundic and never gets the chance to see her daughter grow up, she dies knowing that Margery will always take care of Gloria and that she has never abandoned her sense of purpose.
Mundic
Mundic is a veteran of World War II and a survivor of a Japanese POW camp in Burma. He is tall, gaunt, and suffers from recurring bouts of beriberi, a kind of malnutrition. Although the term is not used in the book, he displays symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), including anxiety and hallucinations. When Mundic interviews for a job as Margery’s assistant and she rejects him, he develops an obsessive conviction that only he can lead her expedition in New Caledonia.
Mundic’s grasp of reality is affected by his past trauma, and his memories of wartime suffering often seep into his perceptions of present-time experience. Other characters in the book feel sorry for him but don’t know how to help him, often unintentionally enabling his stalking of Margery through their good intentions. Cast adrift in a post-war society, Mundic doesn’t fit in and struggles to adapt. A morally complex antagonist, Joyce uses the character of Mundic to explore the consequences of unaddressed trauma, contrasting his inability to heal with Margery’s journey toward recovery.
