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Summary
Chapters 37-40
Chapter 37, Sold Out
Roth mulls over his interview with Elizabeth Zott during his long flight back from Commons to New York. During their conversation, Elizabeth opens up to Roth, telling him that she and Calvin were soulmates and that he was the only man who ever took her work seriously. That is, aside from Dr. Donatti, who believed in the value of her work to the extent that he stole and published it himself. She tells Roth that she wanted to use “Supper at Six” to teach chemistry to women, because learning chemistry helps them to understand everything else. She also recounts all of the tragedies that have happened to her in California, her struggles to fit in, her loneliness and hardship as a single mom. He’s deeply moved. However, when the article is published, Roth’s editor has added and removed so much that it’s unrecognizable. Elizabeth is painted as a silly, flirtatious celebrity who has no real scientific skills.
Chapter 38, Brownies
“Supper at Six" explodes with popularity after the Life article comes out. Despite the fact that Elizabeth was portrayed as a brainless bimbo, advertisers and product endorsements flood into KCTV. Elizabeth can’t believe the inherent sexism of some of the submissions, especially a pink, plastic perfume-making “chemistry” set for girls. She tells Mad not to read the article, which of course her daughter immediately does. As she reads, she hears her mother on the TV giving up on the episode’s planned recipe and making brownies instead. She’s heartbroken at how Elizabeth is portrayed in Life, as is Reverend Wakely, who shows up to check on her. Elizabeth recognizes him from the funeral and asks him to stay. The group sit around the table, and Wakely reveals that Mad has sent him the text of the original article, which Roth had dropped off at their house as an apology. Mad begins to cry, as she thinks her mother gave up being a chemist because of her.
Chapter 39, Dear Sirs
Two days earlier, Mad goes to Wakely’s office and meets Frask, who is working as his typist. Frask tells Mad that she used to know her parents, and speaking unintentionally harshly, also tells her that Elizabeth was fired because she was pregnant. Mad crumples into guilty tears. Frask writes a letter to Life magazine, defending Elizabeth and exposing the wrongdoings at Hastings. She lists Elizabeth’s accomplishments and explains the crimes that were committed against her, including Donatti's sexism and his theft of Elizabeth’s work. Life publishes Frask’s letter in the next issue, but Elizabeth isn’t interested in reading it. From the writing on the note Harriet finds in Mad’s lunchbox, it seems the two narrative timelines have met, and we’ve returned to the sad day that began the novel.
Chapter 40, Normal
Elizabeth and Wakely discuss their thoughts on death, picking over their shared experiences with loss and guilt. Wakely talks to her about needing to let go of shame in order to move forward. He suggests that Elizabeth's true challenge is not wanting to escape life, but rather to accept the unacceptable fact that her brother and Calvin are dead. She tells him that she sometimes wishes she had gone with them, and he contradicts her. He thinks what she really wants is to be back ‘in,’ doing the research she loves, making work that feeds her spirit.
Analysis
Roth is surprised and touched by Elizabeth’s candor during their interview, and horrified by the casual cruelty she describes as being normal at Hastings. The genuine passion and honesty with which she tells her love story with Calvin makes it seem like her only source of joy, which isn’t far from the truth. Elizabeth doesn’t believe in fate, but here and elsewhere she refers to herself and Calvin as “soulmates.” She tells Roth that their bond was unlike anything else she’d ever seen or heard of, that they "didn't just click. [they] collided.” Her adoration of Calvin is also, Roth observes, clearly tied to the fact that he respected her as a scientist and wanted to learn from her. This made him special and unique to Elizabeth, as the only other man who had ever treated her that way was her brother.
Elizabeth draws a parallel that feels surprising between Calvin and Donatti here, saying that they were the only two men who ever believed she “belonged at Hastings.” However, she doesn’t mean that Donatti had her best interests at heart, as Calvin did. Roth is shocked to hear the tale of the years of sexism, theft, and plagiarism Elizabeth had to suffer, and that it came from senior colleagues like Donatti and opportunists like Boryweitz. All of this context helps him to understand why she would want to use her television platform in the way that she does. Roth had no idea that this sort of thing happened to women, but now that he’s heard about it he also sees that changing it would mean changing society. In teaching chemistry’s foundational rules to her homemaking audience, Elizabeth is trying to educate women on the “basic concepts” that reveal the “false limits” set upon them by a patriarchal society. Roth thinks at first that he’s seeing the woman behind the celebrity façade, but then realizes as Elizabeth is speaking that he’s actually seeing the scientist behind the female body. Elizabeth is “not a woman chemist,” as she repeatedly says, she’s “a chemist! And a damn good one.” She’s determined to combat systemic silencing, and Roth sees that she’s trying to do it by teaching women how to speak for themselves in a world which usually denies them those lessons.
However, his wish to portray Elizabeth as a scientist and a pioneer is completely thwarted when his editor removes all of the potentially inflammatory gender-based commentary. Instead of celebrating Elizabeth and other women STEM alongside her, the article becomes a fluff piece full of nasty quotes from men about her “luscious” looks and lack of scientific qualifications. It’s a bleak illustration of the media’s role in supporting gender biases. Instead of exposing the truth, Roth’s article ends up symbolically donning the tight clothes and lipstick that Elizabeth refused to wear for “Supper at Six.”
Indeed, the surge of popularity that “Supper at Six” gets after Elizabeth’s reputation is destroyed speaks to a paradox women often face: being simultaneously celebrated and underestimated. Elizabeth does not want to be known for her beauty or her charms, and she finds the idea that girls and boys are fundamentally different to be baseless and foolish. Given this, the misogynistic undertones of the pink plastic chemistry set she’s asked to promote emphasize trivialization of women's interests and intellect in the name of making money. The “chemistry set” is intended for use by little girls, but it’s totally removed from anything a chemist actually does.
Frask's letter to Life magazine thankfully does some work to restore Elizabeth’s public character. It’s also a brave act of penance from Frask, who realizes the large part she played in crushing Elizabeth’s dreams and shaming her. She feels terrible for accusing Elizabeth of riding Calvin’s coattails, and is willing to expose herself, Donatti, and Hastings in order to make amends. The fact that a letter by a woman defending an article about a woman is immediately published in Life is also a good sign for the effects of Elizabeth’s advocacy on American society. Her voice has made enough of a difference that there’s a public outpouring of support after Life initially silences her.
