Integrity and Reputation Theme Analysis

In Tim Winton’s “On Her Knees,” Victor Lang’s mother Carol, who works as a housecleaner for wealthy homeowners, is accused by one of her clients of the theft of a pair of earrings, fired, but requested to clean the apartment for one final week as the client finds a replacement. When Carol and Victor return for the final cleaning, they find the missing earrings beneath the client’s bed. Through this situation, the story dramatizes the difference between reputation and integrity. While Victor believes the discovery of the earrings should clear Carol’s reputation, Carol understands that it won’t—the client might just argue that Carol returned the earrings and then claimed to have found them. This dynamic enrages Victor, who then seeks to take some sort of revenge on the client, whether by finding some incriminating evidence about the client or by leaving the found earrings in the kitty litter. But Carol takes an entirely different tack: she cleans the apartment thoroughly and perfectly, using her own tools rather than the client’s, and refuses to take any money for doing the job. While Carol recognizes she can’t make an outward show to manage her reputation—her wealthy client will always have more sway in public than Carol will—Carol insists instead on maintaining her own integrity, and as the story ends Victor sees her as a kind of hero for this insistence. Ultimately, the story portrays reputation as something external, subject to forces beyond a person’s control, and part of a game that has to be played but isn’t a measure of personal worth. In contrast, by showing Victor’s growing understanding of the strength of his mother’s integrity, the story presents integrity as inherent, entirely subject to one’s own control, and the ultimate measure of personal worth regardless of class, wealth, reputation, or anything else.

When Victor discovers the missing earrings on the floor beneath the client’s bed, he wants to aggressively and proactively clear Carol’s name by involving the police or confronting the client with the evidence that “she was too lazy to look for.” Carol, however, knows that such attempts will only backfire, harming her reputation rather than salvaging it. The client has the social power to “say anything” about Carol; she could easily claim that Carol stole the earrings and later brought them back to save her reputation. Taking direct action against the client will only prompt the client to further slander her and would likely alienate her other clients as well. Carol is adamant that her reputation—her “good name”—is all she really has. Clients care about her reputation more than anything, but the story makes clear that Carol doesn’t have control over it—it is subject to the whims of clients and the dangers of careless accusations. Any attempts to insist upon her innocence and salvage her reputation will only make her look guiltier because reputation is external, built by others and not truly hers to shape. Reputation is important—vital to her work—but it is not a true reflection of Carol or her worth.

When Victor understands their helplessness in protecting Carol’s reputation, he responds by initially wanting revenge. He snoops around the apartment, hoping to destroy the client’s reputation by finding something incriminating, but ultimately finds nothing to satisfy him. He also finds ways to pettily make the client suffer. He tries to convince Carol to take the money and leave without completing the job and cleans the cat litter box only halfheartedly before dropping the earrings into it. Carol’s behavior, however, is dignified and respectful. She completes the work perfectly, using her own tools, and refuses payment. In doing so, she insists on her own integrity in a way that not even the client could deny. She can’t control her reputation, but she can control her integrity and her response to adversity. Integrity, the story implies, arises solely from Carol’s own actions and attitude—no client or “talk” can take it from her or deny it. Witnessing his mother’s example, Victor recognizes that his actions work counter to her belief in personal integrity. He sets aside his plans for revenge, rescuing the earrings from the cat litter box and setting them on the counter next to the money Carol refused to take. In this quiet act, Carol asserts her integrity to the client in a private way that the client can’t refute or respond to.

The final image of the story, Carol bathed in the light of the open doorway of the client’s apartment, shows her through Victor’s eyes as a kind of hero or even an angel. Her reputation remains beyond her control, and she doesn’t force the client to publicly clear her name, but, more importantly, she passes every test of adversity in upholding her personal integrity. Though Victor acts through much of the story as the metaphorical devil on Carol’s shoulder, urging her towards behavior that would prioritize her reputation at the cost of her integrity, he eventually recognizes that the measure of a person’s true worth lies in integrity rather than reputation. There would be no satisfaction in an avenged reputation, but Victor finds contentment and pride in the knowledge that Carol’s integrity shines through all the external debris.