The Only Woman in the Room

Chapters 6 and 7 demonstrate the unexpected connection between Fritz and Hedy as founded on one shared core experience: overcoming their reputations. The concept of reputations and the damage they can wreak is significant to this novel, particularly in expressing the unequal distribution of this damage between men and women. Fritz’s reputation as a womanizer and arms dealer doesn’t hurt him in the same way Hedy’s reputation as a risqué actress does. Instead, he is instilled with power and influence, where she is undermined and underestimated. Hedy’s attraction to Fritz because of this similarity underlines how insecure she feels about her own reputation; by absolving him of his past, she is hoping she, too, can be absolved.

By Chapter 7, their relationship is significantly changed. Hedy is continuing to perform as she keeps her excitement hidden, knowing part of her power over him is in how she conducts herself. However, the chapter reveals that Fritz also exercises power over her, despite her efforts. Her strong infatuation with him and desire to keep him happy causes her to overlook many warning signs. Firstly, his unwillingness to share anything personal with her but urgency to learn all about her. This is a conscious effort to control her, one that foreshadows the coming nature of their relationship. Secondly, the change to his demeanor when she attempts to steer the conversation to his past reveals that he is actively hiding something about himself and that he resents her for trying to take even small forms of control. Hedy’s shrewdness fails to see these traits as potentially dangerous but only as parts of the powerful man she’s come to care for.

Chapter 8 deals with the political situation in Austria, bringing the narrative back to focusing on the political maneuvers of the 1930s. By bringing the uncertainty of Austria’s fate into discussion through the issue of Fritz’s proposal, the novel articulates how politics saturate every single decision, particularly for European Jews. The chapter communicates how varied the Jewish experience is through Hedy’s own misunderstanding of the weight of her heritage. Hedy’s naivete at believing that antisemitism applies only to those with “orthodox beliefs […] who dressed in traditional garb” (40) stresses an essential issue for this novel—identity. Hedy is just learning that the tumultuous world she lives in assigns identities to others, as well as that there are parts of her identity she cannot deny. This revelation conveys the danger every single (even distantly) Jewish Austrian is in as well as demonstrates Fritz’s proposal as something the Kieslers simply cannot deny. Even if they don’t earn his retaliation for denial, they cannot refuse his protection.

Fritz’s proposal in Chapter 9 deals with the theme of performativity as Hedy must give up her professional career to marry Fritz. Despite her real feelings for him, this is a great loss, one that marks her desperation for safety. However, even as she accepts this proposal, she is acting. She rehearsed lines all night and controls her expression by looking up at Fritz “through the fringe of [her] lashes” (47) to convey innocence and desire. Ironically, by asking Hedy to give up acting, Fritz relegates her to a function in which she must always be performing. It seems, though, that he does not care if she performs her wifely duties or enjoys them; he significantly offers her the role, not position, of wife. This implies his expectations of her—that she must execute her wifely duties as diligently and with as much enthusiasm as she performed her other parts.