Blonde: A Novel

“‘See? That man is your father.’ There was a day, it was Norma Jeane’s sixth birthday, the first day of June 1932, and a magical morning it was, blinding breathless whitely dazzling, in Venice Beach, California.”

Here, Norma Jeane believes her mother is showing her a picture of her real father, although this is never confirmed, and Norma Jeane continues to seek out her real father throughout her life. Her mother shows her daughter the picture but refuses to give her a name, and as such, the identity of Norma Jeane’s father is held just out of her reach.

“If I was pretty enough, my father would come and take me away.”

This presents the belief that Norma Jeane holds at the beginning of the novel that she could earn love through her appearance. Eventually, however, she becomes one of the most sexually desired women in the world, but she still does find the love she needs.

“A curse in the blood Fleece was always saying with a smirk you can’t escape.”

Fleece calls a woman’s period her curse. Norma Jeane’s developing sexuality becomes a curse for her in a different way, however, as it brings unwanted sexual attention from both boys and men to her and ultimately leads her to get married weeks after she turns 16.

“When a man wants you, you’re safe.”

Norma Jeane spends her life looking for safety and security. She believes it can be found in the love or lust of men. It is possible that this desire for male approval stems from the lack of a father figure in her life. Her desire for a father figure is present throughout the entire novel.

“Who the hell did this girl think she was? Right now she wasn’t even that pretty, her face damp and smudged. An orphan!”

Bucky eventually comes to think this of his wife as she begs him not to photograph her in the nude. These words show that he believes he has a right to this type of access to his wife even though she does not want it. He believes she owes him what he wants.

“You sad, sick cow.”

Bucky says these words to Norma Jeane as she half-nakedly presses herself against him in the middle of the night, overcome with despair over his impending deployment. He does not like sexually aggressive women, and he says these words to her. They hurt her at the time, but their greatest effect is in the way she repeats them to herself throughout the rest of her life, frequently seeing herself in no better light than Bucky does here.

“It isn’t acting when you have no technique, when it’s just you. Naked.”

It is repeated numerous times in the novel that Norma Jeane does not use specific acting techniques. Rather, she embodies her characters. This is part of what makes her a mesmerizing actress, and others in the film industry note this same quality in her acting.

“She was nineteen or twenty then, and already you could see the doom in her. The most beautiful girl in the class, and yet the least talented of us could crush her with a word, a glance, the hint of a sneer.”

A member of Norma Jeane’s acting class says this about her. These words demonstrate the manner in which Norma Jeane is a combination of both talent and pathological low self-esteem.

“We punished her the only way we knew. Letting her understand We don’t love you. You don’t belong. You’d be more convincing as a tramp, a slut. You aren’t what we want. You aren’t what The Studio wants. Your insides don’t match your outside. You’re a freak.”

A classmate says this about Norma Jeane. Everyone in the class sees both her talent and her neediness, and they debase her in the way that will hurt the most for her. She spends her professional career attempting to be seen as a real actress, not just a sex symbol, but industry insiders, just like these classmates, do not allow her to do this.

“Shinn and the blonde leave the building and walk away to the curb. The director says, exhaling smoke in pain, ‘Sweet Jesus. Look at the ass on that little girl, will you?’ In this way, Norma Jeane’s future was decided.”

Norma Jeane wants to be taken seriously as an actress. Here, however, it is shown that her physical attributes get her an important job, not her ability.

“On the floor, on her back, arms outstretched, the girl earnestly explains to the director that the character’s first scene begins with her asleep on a sofa so she has to lie down on the floor, that’s how she’s been rehearsing. The first time you see Angela she’s asleep. That’s crucial. You see her through the eyes of the older man, who’s her ‘uncle,’ a married man, a lawyer. You don’t see Angela except through his eyes, and later in the script you see Angela through the eyes of police officers. Only through men’s eyes.”

These words demonstrate the degree to which Norma Jeane realizes that women are seen through the eyes of men in films. Therefore, she makes herself into the person the men want to see.

“Did I let her try again? Sure. She was fascinating to watch. Like a mental patient, maybe. Not acting. No technique. She’d put herself to sleep and out would come this other personality that was her yet also not-her.”

Here, Oates again emphasizes the degree to which Norma Jeane takes on the persona of her characters. Eventually, through playing some of her roles, she seems to literally start believing that she is her characters.

“One day he was screaming at her over the phone, the next day he was dead. One day she was stricken with shame, the next day stricken with grief and remorse.”

Norma Jeane turns down Shinn’s marriage proposal. Eventually, after his death, she comes to believe at times that she would have been best off accepting it. His love for her is shown here when he dies very shortly after her nude photos are released, showing his affection for her and his horror at her debasement.

“From their not-so-veiled allusions she understood that, sexually, she wasn’t much. Maybe most men preferred other men, or would if they had the option; obviously a man knows what another man wants, and Norma Jeane hadn’t a clue. So she laughed and drank. It was wiser to laugh than to cry. Wiser to laugh than to think. Wiser to laugh than not to laugh. Men loved her when she laughed, even Cass and Eddy G, who saw her up close, without makeup.”

These words demonstrate how even as part of the Gemini, Norma Jeane is an outsider. They love her, but she cannot break into their male bond or experience the degree of love they have for each other.

“And that’s true for human ‘stars’ too. They must be something, not just nothing. There must be substance to them.”

Norma Jeane gets upset when she is told that stars are just light. This upsets her because she does not want to believe that celebrity stars are just light as well and are thus not made of substance. She spends her life looking to create in herself a person of substance.

“Between the legs, you can trust her she’s clean. She’s not a dirty girl, nothing foreign or exotic. She’s an American slash in the flesh. That emptiness. Guaranteed. She’s been scooped out, drained clean, no scar tissue to interfere with your pleasure, and no odor. Especially no odor. The Girl with No Name, the girl with no memory. She has not lived long and she will not live long.”

While these words foreshadow Norma Jeane’s death, they also present the way in which men want to see her, which is clean and as pure sex. This quote also speaks to her one known abortion, as the fetus was also described as “scooped out.”

“Why was I crying? Maybe because in actual life Cherie would’ve been drinking, a lot. She would’ve been missing half her teeth. She would’ve had to sleep with the bastards. It didn’t make any sense she could avoid them except the screenplay was sentimental and corny and in 1956 you couldn’t risk getting an X-rating from the Legion of Decency. In actual life Cherie’d have been beaten and probably raped. She’d have been shared by men. Don’t tell me the Wild West wasn’t like that, I know men. She’d have been used by them until she got knocked up or her looks went or both. There wouldn’t have been any good-looking yokel-cowboy Bo to throw her over his shoulder and carry her away to his ten-thousand-acre ranch. She’d have been drinking and taking drugs to keep going until the day she couldn’t get up from bed any longer, couldn’t even get her eyes fully open, and after that she’d be dead.”

Norma Jeane identifies with her character, Cherie. Here, she expresses how she understands Cherie deeply, to the point that she knows a woman like her, in real life, would be used and abused by the world.

“What I mean is, there should always be somebody seeing these things, see what I mean? Somewhere in the world. Every minute. Because what if—they’re forgotten?”

Norma Jeane desires to pay witness to the atrocities of the world. She believes it is her job to read about these atrocities, and this demonstrates how she has a need to be seen in order to really exist.

“We began to die then, didn’t we? You blamed me. Never. Not you. Because I failed to save you and the baby. Not you. Because I wasn’t the one to suffer. To bleed out my guts. Not you. It was me. All that I deserved. I killed Baby once, Baby was already dead.”

In this discussion, it is not clear whether this conversation actually happened between Norma Jeane and the Playwright. What is clear is that her idea of her two deceased babies are confused, as it appears that she is combining both babies in one.

“[S]ad, sick cow piece of meat cunt that’s dead inside.”

This is Marilyn’s internal monologue. It shows how she has combined Bucky’s hurtful words toward her with the way other people have made her feel. The word “cunt” is used numerous times in the novel, and it shows how she is debased and dehumanized.

“There’s a curse on the actor, always you are seeking an audience. And when the audience sees your hunger it’s like smelling blood. Their cruelty begins.”

These words are similar to the sentiment expressed by the students in her acting class. In the text, people become cruel when they see others’ need for their approval.

“Any scene (so long as it’s a scene and not life) can be played. Whether well or badly it can be played. And it won’t last more than a few minutes.”

Norma Jeane believes she is brought to President Kennedy’s hotel room to spend the weekend with him. In reality, he does not get off the phone when he initiates sexual activity with her. She is horrified as he starts to guide her head toward his penis, but she decides that she can survive if she is able to imagine it as a scene. This can be seen as a form of depersonalization.

“Nico at night, Whitey at daybreak. She would never plead with them Don’t tell my secrets oh please? They knew her naked, not nude.”

Norma Jeane loved the Playwright, but she was always afraid he would write about her. With Whitey and Nico, two men who work for her and know her very well, she does not have this fear. They truly respect her, and as such, she does not fear them.