A Critical View of A.S. Byatt's Medusa's Ankles

In a society perpetuated by the eternal struggle for youth and beauty, A.S. Byatt explores the aging of a woman within the scope of the superficiality of a salon. It begins with a Matisse, The Pink Nude. It is the timeless youth of Matisse's nude that captures the eye of the middle-aged Susannah, who wants nothing more than a simple haircut. Within the rosy confines of The Pink Nude, she discovers her opposite-Lucian, the owner of the salon. It is the contradiction of the two that builds the story to its climax: the indignation of an aging woman, defending the right to simply grow old.

The juxtaposition is immediate between the main characters, Susannah and Lucian. Susannah is a classicist, a professor and orator of traditionalist beliefs. She is plain and scholarly. There can be no room made for the frivolity of youth and beauty. Her life is academia; her nature guided by the cracking, leather bound books of old.

Lucian is a fiercely self-absorbed hairdresser, whose lack of substance is obvious from the second page of Medusa's Ankles. When asked about the Matisse, Lucian is unaware of the magnificence in shop. He simply saw color. "Oh, that. I saw it in a shop. I thought it went exactly with the colour-scheme I was planning" (4).

Though Susannah is hesitant to return to the salon, she continues to return, listening to the one-dimensional ramblings of a hairdresser torn between the immediate gratifications of a new girlfriend and the swollen, haggard harry of his wife. Lucian ambles through the stories of his boredom with his wife, and how lovely is his young girlfriend. "'Love,' he said. 'Total affinity. Absolute compatibility. A miracle. My other half. A perfectly beautiful girl.'" (12). The girlfriend was opposite of his wife, as Susannah and Lucian were opposite. The youth and beauty obsessed struggling against the old and tired. It is this theme that Byatt carries throughout the entire novella.

Byatt masters this resistance with an antagonistic flare. She morphs the salon into a room of obscene torture, as Lucian redecorates the pink and cream whiffs of youthful booths to a more modern, metallic, and uninviting fashion. This move to a more fashion-forward look is reminiscent of the transition from a hard copy to a digital world; a world that most seniors feel unwelcome in. This is but another technique that Byatt employs to discuss the lack of acceptance the aged feel.

Within the scope of the novella, Byatt's motive is to provoke the reader into contemplating the helplessness of growing old. As the wife and the former look of the salon are being discarded, Susannah empathizes with both, as she is growing old, and will be replaced. The fear of being viewed as exhausted seeps into the thoughts of Susannah as she listens to Lucian drone on about the emphasis of beauty, reaffirming her own insecurities of being outdated. She witnesses everything that she is used to-the rosy sheets of curtains, the pink and white wafers, the clouds of chairs she perches upon-being replaced with the younger, more modern outlook. "Her face in the mirror was grey, had lost the deceptive rosy haze of the earlier lighting" (16). As she stares at herself in the grey lighting of the new shop, Susannah comes to realize that she too would fade away, be replaced for something younger, faster, more modern.

This is where Byatt does something completely different: she sides with the middle-aged Susannah. In the graying light of the salon, Susannah finds the discomfort of Lucian's world and uses it to her advantage. He begins to describe his wife; he paints her in such a poor light that Susannah and the reader can feel nothing except pity for the woman. "'She's let herself go. It's her own fault. She's let herself go altogether. She's let her ankles get fat, they swell over her shoes, it disgusts me, it's impossible for me.'" (21). The mounting tension of being disregarded infuriates Susannah into action. She jumps from the chair; her hair a tangled swarm of snake-like knots. Retaliating, Susannah avenges the aged and unattractive with an explosive tirade, destroying the very tools of beauty that makes her life cruel and unbearable.

Here, Byatt explores the acceptance of growing old, and how thoughtless younger generations can be. This concept can best explain the novella's title-Medusa's Ankles. She integrates the mythology of jealousy and beauty neatly in the package of a salon, with Lucian portraying the young, boastful Medusa. It is this strange twist that makes Byatt's novella intriguing. The spiteful, vengeful attack of Susannah mirrors that of the goddess Athena, who turned Medusa into a horrible beast-exactly what Susannah did to Lucian. Destroying his salon exposed Lucian for what he truly was: a shallow, conceited man.

However, Byatt has yet another twist in the story for the reader. Lucian is unconcerned with the disaster that is his salon. He disregards the outburst, as he has disregarded everything up to that point. This reinforces his lack of concern for internal emotions; he only sees surfaces. He is completely unaware of the sentiment behind her eruption. He sees the disarray of the salon as an opportunity to begin a new life in the much more attractive Greek Islands. Lucian does not see the intent of Susannah, the contempt she feels for his lack of compassion towards his wife, towards everything that has grown tired to him.

Byatt's contemporary glimpse into the psyche of a middle-aged woman gives insight to the dejection many people, predominantly women, feel as they age. As Susannah momentarily contemplated, she too doubted her looks and her age in the mirror, as she sat in a business geared strictly for the beautification of men and women. It is societal pressure that feeds the beast, and creates an unnatural desire for youth and beauty. However, the protagonist stands against such superficial requests and demands to be accepted as she is: an aged woman. There is a secret acceptance within Susannah that most women would enjoy having, yet the burden of perfection generates a monumental self-loathing. There is nothing more that women would appreciate than to be accepted as they are, whether it is perfection or swollen ankles. As exhibited by Lucian, the external forces weigh down most women, and beat them into submission. It is this psychological warfare that Byatt writes about, and demonstrates with charming and precise accuracy.

In the end, Susannah attempts to wash away the damage down to her hair by Lucian, only to be greeted by her husband, who acknowledges how beautiful she is. The closing sentence leaves the reader with a feeling of remorse, noticing that the stand-off with Lucian and the demons he foster in his shop of horrors had been for little. It also reaffirms the pressure of society to look the best you can, for people respond to beauty. The melancholy of Medusa's Ankles is profound; the struggles of one woman within the boundaries of a salon. It seems ridiculous, yet, the honesty of the novella is apparent. There is not one thought that Susannah shares that has not mulled over by a woman. The constant bombardment of images of young, arrestingly beautiful girls haunts the minds of many, and drives the population for an elixir that would end all signs of age and unattractiveness. After all, Juan Ponce de Leon spent much of his life searching for a fountain of youth; the desire has been within the human psyche from conception. Byatt demonstrates the endless cycle of this psychological abuse from society, and notes that there is no answer. Even when Medusa fights back, society tries to get her to conform to the ideal standard, regardless if that standard is not her true self.
WORKS CITED

Byatt, A.S. The Matisse Stories. New York: Random House, 1993.