Family And Society In Nine Days By Tony Jordan

In her 2012 historical fiction nine days Tony Jordan weaves together four generations of the Westaway family, spanning from the slums of 1900 to Richmond until its now modernised construct. Jordan emphasises that not all characters are able to prevail over the barriers society and family places on. Highlighting this through her demonstration of women’s rights, education, and family.

In Nine days, Jordan explores how some obstacles placed on characters by family and society are unbeatable. First doing this through her illustration of women’s rights, highlighting the differences in a woman’s rights to her body as time passes throughout the novel. Doing so with her characterisation of Connie, Kip, and Francis’s older sister. Connie from an early

Displaying this first through Stanzi, Kips daughter. A young woman who has become exhausted over her job being a psychoanalyst, rather than her once passionate profession, finds it to be a chore, coming to hate her profession she chooses to leave her job, and pursue personal training. This is an easy task for her, as she is a woman with a high level of education and lives in a time where woman where given freedom in their career choices. This same ease is not found with female characters such as Connie. In Connies time the education Stanzi received was not given to woman, as the role of a woman was not as to be taught, or educated, but to do as told and “find a good man to keep care of ya” not only does this show how vastly the change in access to education has come for woman over 50 years, but the immense limits placed upon woman the early 1900’s. This same barrier is further supported when Jordan highlights the differences in a woman’s choice in education, when looking at Connie, her education is quickly revoked upon toms’ death, yet she was the oldest, her education was seen as the least important when compared to her two brothers Kip and Francis. And when speaking about her desire to learn or get a job, she is laughed at or mocked as in her period a woman having a job, let alone one she had choice in was seen as laughable. Contrastingly Stanzi has complete control over her careers

An individual has no choice in the family that they are born in, a factor left to luck or fate in what will obstruct a character in society. This commonly present theme in Nine days is first displayed with Kips direct family, we are introduced to his family as consisting of a mother Jean, who is a stay-at-home mom who wants the best for her family, Connie, their sister who acts as the driving force of their family, Kips brother Francis, their familys pride and joy, and their recently decided father Tom. Kips fathers’ unfortunate death left their family in an unfortunate position, this loss left their family with an extreme barrier. Money, as Tom was the “breadwinner” of the Westaway’s they were left with no choice. Connie first driven out of school, then kip. This loss left both Kip and Connie uneducated something for both men and woman of the time was extremely important for