Irregularities

Sometimes the truth is not as comfortable as you want it to be. But the only way to get further is to face it. That isn’t easy always when it could as a result of an unfortunate incident ex. a pregnancy, as we see in “Irregularities”. Sometimes time changes, and you don’t know how you should deal with things, and unfortunately sometimes you can’t overcome problems like before, and you have to deal with it unpleasantly.

This is a short story about the young office secretary, whom with help from her married boss conceives a child. She doesn’t know if she should tell him or not. Though she has a lot of opportunities to tell him about it, but she doesn’t. Her problems are too many. . Her dreams stretches as far, as having their own little family. She looks up to her sister and her boss as well. The sister, who has everything the narrator, could ever dream about, and James Solander with his perfect wife, perfects furnished office, and cashmere clothes. She even dreams about being married to James, but at the same time she sees his wife as perfect. She cannot get use to the thought about her pregnancy and becoming a mother, and sometimes she even forgets about the baby. The thought of having to tell Dr. Solander about their baby is making her feel very uncomfortable, and she hopes he will discover it by himself, like when she did. This is a recurring image in the story, all her thoughts about this baby, and she can finally see herself with an apron and cookbooks, like a real mother. She is very aware of the baby and even though “... this baby inside me has the most awful fits”, (L.34) she is happy about her pregnancy. However, when she receives the message, that her body might not be able to hold on to the baby, she just goes into his office and tells it right away. In one way, she is relieved that James and she are not going to be parents, but on the other hand, she is sorry for the loss of her baby, which she was come to care and have motherly feelings for. She is occupied with feelings that she keeps to herself. She doesn’t really talk to anybody about it. The only one with a little knowledge about it is her gynecologist. No one is to guide her on her current state of mind. This causes her use of the magazine’s, to tell her how she should handle such “love affair”.

Dr. Solander, which is the father to this unfortunate already conceived baby, is a successful man. He’s got a beautiful wife, who loves him. Together with success comes hard work and dedication, however he’s a busy man. Professionalism lies within his approach to his job. For instance doesn’t he really make a problem out of that he has had a sexual intercourse with his secretary. However, in the eyes of the narrator she doesn’t really mind his professionalism, based on the fact that she is very much affected with how Dr. Solander complimented and seduced her afterwards.

The affair simply started of when Dr. Solander examined the narrator’s heartbeat. The narrator is very surprised that someone was interested in her for something that was wrong with her, and therefore the boss fascinates the narrator. James Solander is fascinated about her irregular heart, this causes they do “it” right on the desk. The narrator denies this relationship to be like the one she reads in magazine’s, she calls it typical secretary and boss relationship, “...which you might see on a soap opera” (L. 79). Obviously she can’t handle that she really admires her own little drama-games. It develops fairly “tragic”. Before the narrator and Dr. Solander’s little incident, he was very forthcoming to his administrative assistant. He had bought her gifts for her office: “... until I get to my office, sit in my ergonomically correct rolling chair in front of my ergonomically correct keyboard (both gifts from James Solander)” (L. 26), and he came into her office once in a while to have a chat and give her an assignment, that he only trusted her with.
After the narrator tells him about she can’t have a baby, he takes home his jacket every night, which must mean that he had got a sense that something is very wrong. The time afterwards he’s isn’t a much caring towards her as before, though the things he’s has done didn’t seem very like “caring” things from the objective observers view. However it’s fairly to say the relationship has developed from rather “emotional”, to the formal boss/secretary relationship.

The story is very simple. We have a short introduction and then it slowly builds up towards climax. Climax is when she tells, that she can’t have a baby, he gets suspicious and avoids her and her dream has died out.
The themes a fairly clear to the reader such as, dealing with problems, pregnancy, office relationships, forbidden love, wrong role models, loneliness, being a mother, unwanted pregnancy, and an unstable mind. On the other hand, the message from the protagonist is more or less hidden. I know I haven’t said very much about onions, but the first thing she mentioned in the story is the narrator’s relationship towards onions.

“The smell is on my fingers after that, and even though I scrub and scald them in the Ladies' Room, every time I go to scratch my nose or touch my face I can smell the onion I never wanted in the first place and this baby inside me has the most awful fits. My day settles down a few hours after the onion business. Though the odor of a red onion wouldn't leave a room if you threatened it, my baby and I get used to the smell and forget it is even there. ” Before this, she had read in an article, that trying New Things should have a positive effect, so she started trying onions. This is a clear gateway to the better understanding of her relationship to her baby. She takes advice on how to handle pregnancy from the Magazines, . She faces that she can’t eat it, but she won’t stop and so won’t the smell of the onions. The smell symbolizes her baby, even though she doesn’t want the baby, she can’t get rid of it and it’s really just a problem, which she has to deal with.
On the other hand, the onions could also symbolize her relationship to having relationships. In the start it sounds very nice, and so does the magazine’s say. But when you are stuck in them, like she was with him, and he isn’t very much like the one you met. This is just like she can’t get the horrible smell away, and she just wants to throw it all up.

My final theories are that it’s all just a dream and that she can’t eat onions symbolizes that she won’t overcome all oppositions in perspective of the theory about dreams. Sometimes you just have to face realties. The story is built on irony. I find it quit ironic to bring in an onion, when she can’t eat it.
Otherwise the onions would symbolize the baby, as I explained before in addition to the quote from the text. In fact she tells us in a straight line that the baby and the onions have some sort of connection “ I can smell the onion I never wanted in the first place and this baby inside me has the most awful fits”
The onions are symbolizing what is unwanted, and something she can’t get rid off and has to deal with, which is my connection. The baby is unwanted and how can you ever get rid of it. Especially when articles tell you that onions are good, and too are awkward relationships with your boss. So why shouldn’t she just deal with the baby like she deals with the smell of the onions or isn’t it the same way she deals with her baby. The onion is “popular to eat” and so is the relationship to her boss, and how can she be sure to have a relationship with the boss, well she carries his baby.

In the end, I think the message of the story is, that even though things can be hard to deal with, don’t take advice from what others want it to be. When you have big thoughts, listen to people who know and understand you.