Margaret Drabble writes novels that contain female characters who defy the traditional roles of women. She explains that young women look for role models in the patterns of female behaviour in literature. Since feminist writing is still fairy new Drabble describes the difficulty of writing literature that will comprise these patterns for future generations, “We do not want to resemble the women of the past” (Drabble qtd Guedes 3). By creating unconventional characters who defy the social norms Drabble claims to be “creating a new pattern, a new blueprint” (Drabble qtd Guedes 3) for women. Her novel A Natural Curiosity is a text preoccupies with “socially aberrant behavior” (Rubenstein 140). Drabble questions the validity of social conventions through the unconventional women in A Natural Curiosity who defy social norms. is no exception to her work and contains many women who defy tradition and societal convention. Roberta Rubenstein writes in her essay “Fragmented Bodies/Selves/Narratives: Margaret Drabble’s Postmodern Turn” that

Janice is the most blatantly unconventional woman in the novel. She recognizes that she is not normal, “Janice knows she is neurotic, hysteric, on the verge of some classifiable disorder” (Drabble 80). The first indiscretion Janice commits is at a dinner party. She says to her husband, “And as I remember, you didn’t know much about fucking, in those days. We weren’t much good, either of us. At cooking or fucking” (Drabble 14). Speaking so boldly to her husband and being dismissive of his sexual ability would be considered unladylike in private. Janice insulting her husband in public, particularly about an embarrassing and awkward subject, defies rules of politeness and table manners. Drabble acknowledges that Janice has broken an unspoken societal convention, “one didn’t us words like fucking over dinner, like that, in 1987, in Yorkshire, in the presence of strangers. It wasn’t done” (Drabble 14). In addition to this criticism, the inappropriateness of Janice’s comment is reflected in the reaction of everyone else at the party. There is an awkward silence because of the shock caused by such a statement. Later, on his way home from the dinner party Clive thinks, “There are some things one just can’t talk about. Janice had cheated. She had broken the rules” (Drabble 11). He is extremely uncomfortable with the subject because of his own insecurities. The reason Drabble includes Janice’s defiance of social norms is that she shares the opinion of her character Susie, who questions the validity of being upset about what was said. Susie concedes that Janice was telling the truth, and Drabble is doing the same by including the episode. What Drabble is gesturing towards is that sexuality is a natural part of life and should be less taboo. She is more specifically encouraging honesty regarding the subject. Through Janice’s behaviour, Drabble is questioning the secrecy and false flattery surrounding sexuality. She also creates sympathy for Janice who’s comment about her husband’s sexual ability was hardly more offensive then his insults and teasing about her cooking.

Another unconventional aspect of Janice is her attitude towards her health. She has discovered signs of breast cancer in her body but has no intention on telling anyone about the lump (Drabble 80). Contrary to her inaction about real danger to her health, Janice is a hypochondriac and wastes her time and energy worrying about what else might be wrong with her. Janice represents the two opposite sides of people’s reaction to health care. She is both the person who fears everything is wrong and the person who takes no steps to improve her health. Drabble is exposing the problems with both extremes by exaggerating them through a contradictory character. Through an exaggerated example she exposes the faults of society.

Janice also serves an exaggerated extreme in her aversion to preparing food. She turns the seemingly mundane act of preparing vegetables into a violent ordeal. The imagery used to describe her slicing of cabbage reflects her warped mentality regarding the act, “she slices a red cabbage. Its red and white veins open, its crisp pretty involuted guts stare back at her. Her fingers are stained red, and so is the butcher’s block. She has killed the cabbage” (Drabble 79) Thinking of cabbage in terms of blood and guts is unconventional. Once again Drabble, through the narrator of the novel, acknowledges that Janice’s perspective is unusual. She explains that it is more common to be squeamish about birds but Janice is instead squeamish about vegetables. The exaggerated fear and disgust Janice experiences while cooking may be a mockery of vegetarians. Janice’s abnormal thoughts while cooking are linked with the murderer Paul. She reflects while she cooks that he is a vegetarian. Drabble deliberately mentions Paul close to the violent imagery of the vegetables because of the absurdity of him thinking eating meat is grotesque and violent while he had no problem murdering women. He claims that consuming meat “leads to aggression” (Drabble 17) and believes that refraining from eating it is good for both the mind and the body. It is ironic that he believes he has avoided aggression by becoming a vegetarian, considering how aggressive his crimes are. Drabble is undermining fad diets that claim to affect temperament. She is also criticizing people who are concerned about the violence of animals being a food source but do not object as strongly to violence between humans.

Alix is another character in A Natural Curiosity who challenges social norms. What defines Alix as distinct from acceptable behaviour is her fascination with criminals and her relationship with the murderer Paul Whitmore. Drabble reveals the infringement of social norms as early as the first page of the novel, “Some of her friends disapprove of what could now, Alix realizes, be described as an obsession, but most of them are too polite to comment” (Drabble 1). In having not only Drabble but also Alix recognize that she is obsessed with a murder, the reader has no doubt that Alix is not a conventional woman. Her interest in Paul is described as both excessive and unnatural. Through Alix’s obsession Drabble is revealing the absurd morbidity of interest in murder and murderers. This allows her to expose that social norms entail this same mentality. Alix watches the news on television; which is a common and socially acceptable practice. Like many viewers she is interested in the violent stories and she watches for entertainment. Alix and those people Drabble is critiquing watch out of curiosity and for amusement not in order to be informed. In the short news show Alix watches there are reports of two murders “for a laugh” (one the burning of a homeless man the other the tossing of a friend into a garbage truck), neglect, bullying, multiple murders with the motivation of scaring his girlfriend, torture, child abuse, arson and rape (Drabble 207-208). Drabble is exposing the depravity of enjoying such information. If she were to introduce the concept of watching the news for entertainment as problematic in itself many readers would not take her argument seriously. However, in providing an extreme and then relating it to an everyday occurrence of the same mentality Drabble successfully conveys her message.

Shirley, an additional unconventional woman in A Natural Curiosity, fails to adhere to the traditional role of a widow. It is expected that when a woman’s husband dies she mourns. She is supposed to be sad, but strong enough to inform people of his death and make the proper funeral arrangements. She is meant to support her children and remain faithful to her late husband for a respectable amount of time. Shirley fails to react in any of these ways when she discovers her husband has committed suicide. She leaves without talking to anyone, moving his body or making arrangements (Drabble 98). Rather than being sad like she traditionally should be Shirley is angry at her husband for leaving her. Instead of being supportive of her children she leaves and does not indicate where she is going, which makes things more difficult for them. Finally, rather than remaining committed to her husband even after he dies, she seeks comfort in the company of another man. Drabble is demonstrating that the expectations that are placed on a widow are unreasonable. Everyone needs to deal with loss in their own way and Drabble exposes the reality of this through the character Shirley. Drabble’s sister, the author A.S. Byatt must have been agreed with this view and been inspired because she later wrote a very similar story entitled “Crocodile Tears”.

The unrealistic expectations placed on widows are also explored earlier in A Natural Curiosity; “Wives and widows are never quite what one might expect” (Drabble 28). This comment is made in reference to Dirk Davis’ wife who does not behave the same in private as her public image leads people to believe. Drabble explains why widows that people hear about but do not know personally are capable of maintaining the traditional role. She writes, “what we see is a strange public construction of what we think we would like to see, what the news presenter decides would be suitable for us to see” (Drabble 28). Shirley’s failure to present a public face is Drabble’s way of revealing that below socially acceptable public faces there is often more problems seen only in private. The early mention of Dirk Davis’s wife is foreshadowing and prepares the reader for Shirley’s reaction to her husband’s death.

Esther has an unconventional love life. When her lover Robert proposes, she considers the possible positive and negative consequences of agreeing to marry him; in an attempt to make a rational decision. This in itself is unconventional, since society dictates marriage is based on an emotional decision and traditionally in fiction proposals are responded to immediately. What defies social norms further is Esther’s use of the description “not too heterosexual” (Drabble 187) as a reason to consider marrying Robert. Since they are in a relationship it is expected that she would want Robert to be heterosexual, but she finds his non-heterosexual qualities more attractive. By including this, Drabble is presenting the idea that the stereotypical man and macho ideals may not be ideal for long term relationships. Esther defies social norms even further in the sequel The Gates Of Ivory, “they will not have a conventional marriage, and each will live in his/her own apartment” (Guedes 47). By choosing not to live with him Esther is defying the very nature of marriage and redefining what a long-term commitment entails. Through Esther, Drabble explores the complexity of real relationships that are often simplified and one dimensional in fiction.

In addition to the outright defiance of social norms A Natural Curiosity presents characters who question the very existence of definable norms. One of the central female characters, Liz, finds herself “wondering what normality is” (Drabble 24). She fails to define normality. Jane Campbell writes that the “boundaries between madness and sanity are hopelessly blurred” (Campbell 79) in the novel A Natural Curiosity. Drabble chooses to blur these boundaries because she has observed that they are not clear in real life, and in their blurring she asks the same question as Liz. Liz’s conviction that there is no real “normal” lifestyle grows and when a friend describes himself as being part of an average profession couple she argues that this is not possible. Liz states, “There’s no such thing as the average profession couple” (Drabble 115). Liz in this instance is expressing Drabble’s post-modern view. Drabble has her other characters question normality as well. Tony wonders if Alix and Brian are normal parents, because they appear to be more traditional in the roles than his own. He dismisses this and wonders, “whether there are no such creatures as normal parents?” (Drabble 51). Drabble’s assertion that there is no normal parents implies that there is no one correct way to raise children. Tony questioning if he would prefer to have normal parents reinforces this assertion (Drabble 51).

Drabble utilizes social transgressions to call attention to widespread problems in society and undermine social norms she disagrees with. Many of the characters in A Natural Curiosity are unconventional. Each of these characters and their seemingly inappropriate actions serve a purpose in conveying social commentary. Drabble’s somewhat exaggerated portrayals serve to make her characters more realistic, because it is human nature to occasionally defy social conventions. Particularly since Drabble would argue there is no true “normal” to live up to.