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Jane Austen
Enid is Fay’s sister and Alice’s mother. Little is known about her life, except that she stayed with her mother when the sisters’ parents separated. Enid is married to Edward and is worried about their daughter, Alice, whom she feels does not take school seriously. Enid holds a grudge against Fay for encouraging Alice’s rebelliousness and also for writing in one of her novels about the fact that Enid makes bread rolls for Edward, although Fay insists that the character who makes the bread rolls is not based on Enid. Despite the conflict between them, Enid seems to be interested in reconciling with Fay and invites her to tea at the end of the book.
Enid Quotes in Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen
The Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen quotes below are all either spoken by Enid or refer to Enid. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Letter 6 Quotes
You are not the model for Chloe in Female Friends. Too many of my friends claim that role, in any case, for you to be able to do so sensibly. Any woman who waits upon her husband as a servant upon a master—and they are legion—all too easily sees herself in Chloe. But I made her up. I promise.
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Writing to her sister Enid, Fay denies—seemingly having done so many times before—that she based a character in one of her novels on Enid. Although the character does routinely make bread rolls for her husband in the same way that Enid does for her husband Edward, Fay argues that this overlap does not mean that Enid and the character are the same person. With this quote, Fay demonstrates both how fiction can be an effective pressure on society and how the overlap of fact and fiction can be uncomfortably challenging for readers and writers. Fay suggests that many women identify Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Q
Letter 8 Quotes
As if it were decreed that your mother Enid should put bread rolls to rise every night for your father Edward’s breakfast, in order that a certain paragraph in a certain novel should be written. As if the City of Invention, little by little, using a chapter here, a paragraph there, is waking from its slumber and will eventually be more real than life itself, and we its servants, its outrunners.
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Fay tells Alice how irritating and challenging it can be to publish a novel, in part because the author’s loved ones will insist on seeing themselves in the fictional work. Fay seems to say that this belief is preposterous, and that the author’s friends and family are being irrational for fearing that their lives will be turned into fiction. She reiterates her call for rational, active reading as the true partner of writing, and reveals the less positive side of the way that fiction can influence reality. However, her tone and word choice in this quote seem to hint at Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accu
Letter 11 Quotes
Journalists, in particular, who work so cleverly from the real world, understand description, but not invention. It is not surprising. They lose their jobs if they do invent—novelists get sued if they don’t invent. So I, Grace, D’Albier, must go round the world, stared at as a victim of paternal and maternal incest: and though my parents still speak to me, they do so in a rather stiff way. They can comprehend that I made it up, but their friends can’t.
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Grace D’Albier is the protagonist of a partial short story that Fay writes based on her recent promotional tour for her novel. Grace, who is also a novelist, has written a book about incest and finds that everywhere she goes, her readers—including some of her own family and friends—believe that her novel is autobiographical. This assumption strains all of Grace’s close relationships, acting as an exaggerated dramatization of the kind of tension the Fay suffers when Enid assumes that a fictional character is based on her. For Grace, fiction intrudes on the real world in a very real and destructive Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque erro
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Enid Character Timeline in Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen
The timeline below shows where the character Enid appears in Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Letter 1
...since the girl was two, and now hears from Alice’s mother—Fay’s sister, later revealed as Enid—that Alice dyes her hair black and green and is in conflict with her mother. Fay...
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Fay pauses to consider her own childhood with her sister, Alice’s mother (Enid). She tells Alice that their parents separated when the sisters were young, and that Fay...
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Letter 2
...the modern day. She concludes by telling Alice that she has heard from Alice’s mother, Enid, who is concerned that Fay is “un unsettling influence on Alice.” Fay also notes that...
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Letter 6
Fay writes another letter from Canberra in January, this time to her sister Enid instead of Alice. She notes that she will be leaving for London the next day...
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Fay asks Enid if she remembers when their mother found a copy of a novel Fay wrote and...
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Fay insists that Enid is not the model for a character in one of her own novels, even though...
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...be comfortable borrowing a character from real life, although she worries about the fact that Enid nonetheless sees herself in Fay’s work.
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Fay concludes by asking Enid to send love to Edward, whom Fay hopes will forgive her for using the couple’s...
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Letter 7
...her trip from Australia to England. She notes that she has been in touch with Enid and Edward and may reconcile with them, which causes her to wonder briefly “why any...
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Letter 8
...constantly worry that their lives will be turned in to fiction. Fay concludes by bemoaning Enid’s continued belief that the bread rolls in one of Fay’s novels indicate that the story...
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Letter 14
...how Alice’s exams went. Fay also says that she will soon be having tea with Enid and Edward. She worries that the tea will be unpleasant, but says, “you never know.”...
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Letter 15
...expresses how excited to she is to hear about Alice’s book deal and wonders what Enid and Edward have to say about the news.
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Letter 16
...more than the future. She notes that Alice has stopped dying her hair, and that Enid has invited Fay to tea again. Fay tells Alice that, in order to placate Edward,...
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