In “Dark Roots,” Kennedy uses the problem of honesty between the protagonist and Paul to show the importance of authenticity in relationships. The central relationship of the story is built on a foundation of dishonesty and distance, both between the two characters and within the protagonist’s own self. The protagonist denies her desire for children, hiding that desire from Paul and denying its importance to herself. It is significant that one of the first scenes of the story is that of the protagonist acquiring birth control. This scene comes directly after the reader’s introduction to her lust for and obsession with Paul; thus, the protagonist taking the contraceptives represents her dishonesty with herself about what she really wants from a relationship. Later in the story, she gives herself a warning: “let the smallest reference to babies slip, and you can kiss the guy goodbye.” However, since Paul never mentions babies, the reader can infer that the protagonist is only assuming that Paul does not want to have children, rather than knowing for sure. This is just one of many ways in which the protagonist projects her own insecurities on Paul rather than engaging in open communication.
The protagonist further riddles her relationship with dishonesty through her constant effort to change her appearance (dying her hair, tweezing her facial hair, making a leg wax appointment) to hide her age. She warns herself not to “say a word about turning forty,” later vowing to be “smooth, controlled, gym-toned, with the body of a woman in her late-twenties.” The denial of her own age in service of keeping Paul’s attention is another way that the protagonist projects her insecurities onto Paul. This projection is confirmed when Paul, during a quarrel, asks her to stop worrying about her weight, saying her constant need for assurance is “tiring.” In the same fight, he aptly accuses her of projecting her insecurities onto him: “It’s like you’ve already decided to end it, and you’re just waiting for me to slip up so you can blame me.” The protagonist’s efforts to preserve their relationship by misrepresenting her age have backfired. In the final scene, the protagonist reveals to Paul that she will turn 40 in two weeks. Because the author doesn’t reveal Paul’s reaction, it’s left to the reader to guess how the protagonist’s admission will affect their relationship. But, through the tension and lack of openness in their relationship thus far, the author suggests that the most damaging thing to a relationship isn’t an arbitrary difference like an age gap, but the failure to be honest all along.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Role of Honesty in Relationships ThemeTracker
The Role of Honesty in Relationships Quotes in Dark Roots
Call it what you like, we think it’s love, but it’s chemical.
Once upon a time you would have said, confidently: show me someone who says they’ve never had a fantasy of being the Older Woman, and I’ll show you a liar.
Here’s a dead giveaway: in the supermarket, that third week, your hand will reach out and take a box of hair colour and it’s the easiest thing in the world to appear the next day with red highlights.
You start thinking you actually have those rich chestnut highlights in your hair naturally. Well. You know the rest. You know how it all goes. Then, a week into the contraceptives, you’re ravenous.
Thirteen years ago you were living in London, fervently avoiding any chance of children. Now you’re one of those nuisance women obstetricians must hate, waking up to the alarm on your biological clock just before it runs itself down…. [E]very pill sticks in your throat like a sugar-coated lie.
He goes and buys fish and chips and you eat them at a picnic table, everything dazzling and warm. But once that poison has started, once you’re committed to giving yourself a measured dose of it every day, nothing’s going to be enough. You have traded in your unselfconsciousness for this double-visioned state of standing outside yourself, watchful and tensed for exposure.
“Brazilians are all the go now,” she says. “You want pain, boy…”
“Don’t tell me.”
She tilts your leg, ices on some more wax, rips it away.
“Yep, everything. Completely hairless. Like a Barbie doll.”
“And Jesus, will you just relax and stop worrying about your weight? How much reassurance do you need?”
“I don’t need reassurance.”
“Yes, you do. It’s so bloody tiring. It’s like you’ve already decided to end it and you’re just waiting for me to slip up so you can blame me.”
You’d opened and closed your mouth like a stunned fish. A wave of nausea. You’d clenched your jaw, saying nothing. Don’t cry, you’d ordered yourself., don’t you dare. Mascara running haggard. Lines. Ugly. Old.
“I’ll be forty in a fortnight,” you say.
Impossible to gauge his real, unadorned reaction to that news. You’ll have to turn the light on for that.
