Nine Days

by

Toni Jordan

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Nine Days makes teaching easy.

Stanzi Westaway Character Analysis

Stanzi is the narrator of the second chapter. She is Kip and Annabel’s daughter, and Charlotte’s twin sister. Stanzi does not enter the story until she is in her early 20s, when Charlotte finds out she is pregnant. Although Stanzi is already cynical and admittedly unhappy by this point, in spite of their pleasant childhood, she has plans to continue her counseling career until she can earn her PhD and become a psychoanalyst. However, after 10 years, Stanzi is still in the same counseling role and hates her job and her clients. She is overweight and filled with self-contempt, imagining that her parents love Charlotte more than her, that Charlotte is more beautiful and successful despite never having a real career of her own. After Stanzi violates the counselor-client relationship by visiting one of her clients, Violet, at her house and accusing her of stealing Kip’s special shilling, Stanzi realizes that she needs to quit her job and move on. The last time that Stanzi appears in the story, five years later, she has quit her counseling job, lost weight, and become a personal trainer. She now and co-parents Charlotte’s kids, Alec and Libby. When Stanzi speaks with Alec and her parents, she is less cynical and far more positive and appreciative of her family, demonstrating that personal growth and even happiness are achievable for even the sourest individual.

Stanzi Westaway Quotes in Nine Days

The Nine Days quotes below are all either spoken by Stanzi Westaway or refer to Stanzi Westaway. 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:
Unconventional Family Structure Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2: Stanzi Quotes

“Sometimes, […] when I see a tower in the distance, I half expect to see a plane fly into it.”

Related Characters: Violet (speaker), Stanzi Westaway
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

I have struggled through an entire packet of cream biscuits I didn’t like when I could have had cake. Sacrifice, without any reason or benefit. Ife is too short for cream biscuits. I could be trapped in a collapsing skyscraper tomorrow and it would have all been a tragic waste of calories.

Related Characters: Stanzi Westaway (speaker)
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:

They cannot keep the anger in, the women: they drink too much, they shoplift, they sleep with their doubles partners, they scream at their children, the pay someone to take a knife to their eyes or breast or stomach. The turn the anger inward and develop a depression so deep they cannot get out of bed.

Related Characters: Stanzi Westaway (speaker), Kip Westaway , Jean Westaway
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

Maybe lightning isn’t the best analogy for love. Maybe love is more like a coin: moving between people all around us, all the time, linking people within families and on the other side of the world, across oceans.

Related Characters: Stanzi Westaway (speaker), Kip Westaway , Annabel Crouch
Related Symbols: The Shilling
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4: Charlotte Quotes

It’d be different if Stanzi was pregnant. Stanzi’s going places. She has a degree. That dingy little office next to the dentist, that’s temporary. She’s only working as a counselor until she saves up enough to do her PhD. She’s going to be a psychoanalyst, the philosophical, Freudian type, unpicking people’s fears from the inside. She has a proper career plan.

Related Characters: Charlotte Westaway (speaker), Stanzi Westaway
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8: Alec Quotes

From what [Kip] says, it seems like all kinds of stupid things had to be kept secret back then. When he says that his sister didn’t die from the flu, Stanzi just nods. Charlotte gets on her high horse about ridiculous sexist taboos and lies and nothing to be ashamed of. Grandma [Annabel] smiles. You can’t imagine what it was like back then, she says. So much pain, all covered over.

Related Characters: Alec Westaway (speaker), Kip Westaway , Stanzi Westaway, Jack Husting, Charlotte Westaway, Annabel Crouch , Connie Westaway
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Nine Days LitChart as a printable PDF.
Nine Days PDF

Stanzi Westaway Quotes in Nine Days

The Nine Days quotes below are all either spoken by Stanzi Westaway or refer to Stanzi Westaway. 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:
Unconventional Family Structure Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2: Stanzi Quotes

“Sometimes, […] when I see a tower in the distance, I half expect to see a plane fly into it.”

Related Characters: Violet (speaker), Stanzi Westaway
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

I have struggled through an entire packet of cream biscuits I didn’t like when I could have had cake. Sacrifice, without any reason or benefit. Ife is too short for cream biscuits. I could be trapped in a collapsing skyscraper tomorrow and it would have all been a tragic waste of calories.

Related Characters: Stanzi Westaway (speaker)
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:

They cannot keep the anger in, the women: they drink too much, they shoplift, they sleep with their doubles partners, they scream at their children, the pay someone to take a knife to their eyes or breast or stomach. The turn the anger inward and develop a depression so deep they cannot get out of bed.

Related Characters: Stanzi Westaway (speaker), Kip Westaway , Jean Westaway
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

Maybe lightning isn’t the best analogy for love. Maybe love is more like a coin: moving between people all around us, all the time, linking people within families and on the other side of the world, across oceans.

Related Characters: Stanzi Westaway (speaker), Kip Westaway , Annabel Crouch
Related Symbols: The Shilling
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4: Charlotte Quotes

It’d be different if Stanzi was pregnant. Stanzi’s going places. She has a degree. That dingy little office next to the dentist, that’s temporary. She’s only working as a counselor until she saves up enough to do her PhD. She’s going to be a psychoanalyst, the philosophical, Freudian type, unpicking people’s fears from the inside. She has a proper career plan.

Related Characters: Charlotte Westaway (speaker), Stanzi Westaway
Page Number: 106
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8: Alec Quotes

From what [Kip] says, it seems like all kinds of stupid things had to be kept secret back then. When he says that his sister didn’t die from the flu, Stanzi just nods. Charlotte gets on her high horse about ridiculous sexist taboos and lies and nothing to be ashamed of. Grandma [Annabel] smiles. You can’t imagine what it was like back then, she says. So much pain, all covered over.

Related Characters: Alec Westaway (speaker), Kip Westaway , Stanzi Westaway, Jack Husting, Charlotte Westaway, Annabel Crouch , Connie Westaway
Page Number: 216
Explanation and Analysis: