Blonde: A Novel

The narrator believes that life is all a movie that she cannot see the ending of. The narrator considers the perennial narrative sequence of the Fair Princess and a Dark Prince. The Fair Princess constantly seeks outside validation.

This chapter is divided into seven different subsections and is narrated in both the third- and first-person perspectives from several characters’ points of view. When Norma Jeane Baker turns six years old, her mother, Gladys, shows her a picture of a man who she says is Norma Jeane’s father. Norma Jeane typically lives with her grandmother, Della, and her mother works at the Studio. Norma Jeane considers how she has always seen herself through others’ eyes because she believes she can better trust their interpretations than her own.

Seeing her father’s picture makes Norma Jeane feel like other children. She has always blamed herself for her father’s absence. Gladys tells her daughter that her father has a beautiful name, which she cannot tell her. She tells her that her father is far away but will come back for them both.

Norma Jeane says that she was not an unhappy child: All she ever wanted was her mother, but she was not often available or capable of caring for her. Moreover, Baker, Norma Jeane’s last name, was the last name of the ex-husband Gladys hated the least. 

Norma Jean receives a doll from her mother for her birthday. She is delighted at this rare gesture and wants to hug her mother, but she knows her mother does not like to be hugged. It is Norma Jeane’s responsibility to name the doll, and she knows that names are important. That night, Norma Jeane hears her mother speaking on the phone, insisting that she cannot meet a man because it is her daughter’s birthday. The man has a key to Gladys’s home. Norma Jeane’s mother gives her a bath. The bath water is very hot, which Gladys insists on in order to cleanse them both, inside and out. Norma Jeane hears a key in the lock.

This chapter is broken up into nine subsections. Norma Jeane wakes one night to a fire raging outside her mother’s house. She and her mother get into the car, and Norma Jeane realizes that her mother is driving toward the fire. Norma Jeane forgot her doll in bed. Norma Jeane thinks of her late grandmother Della warning Norma Jeane to call her if her mother’s mood or circumstances became dangerous. Gladys and Norma Jeane are stopped by police, and Gladys insists that she was invited into the neighborhood because she has a friend who owns a fireproof house there. She tries to speak seductively to the officer to get past the barricade, but this does not work, and Norma Jeane does not like the pitying expression directed at her mother.

A Once Upon a Time story is told: A girl cannot climb over a garden wall because fragile girls are imagined unable to do such things. The narrator says that a woman’s body is for others and not herself. The little girl at the wall cries, but a fairy godmother arrives, telling the girl to patiently wait for the doorkeeper, who might admire her and do her bidding. She tells the girl to smile and take off her clothes. This doorkeeper, who appears as an ugly gnome, is a disguised prince who will marry her.

Glady is 34 years old, and Norma Jeane is eight. Gladys wants to be a good mother to her daughter, but some days, it is hard for her to get out of bed. Norma Jeane has noticed that men look at her mother as if she is a spectacle, like a person leaning out of a high-rise. Norma Jeane likes the attention people pay to her mother. If Gladys did not drive these men away, they may have been saved by a marriage. Norma Jeane takes piano and voice lessons, but she is not successful at either. The narrator states that the mother and daughter drive around looking at celebrities' homes. 

A man, Irving G. Thalberg, dies, and Gladys dresses Norma Jeane to go stand outside the funeral. There are throngs of people, and Gladys assures Norma Jeane that her father will be there and will see her. The crowd breaks barricades and is pushed back by police with billy clubs. When they get to the car, Gladys tells Norma Jeane that her father, a Jewish man, saw them. Norma Jeane wets her pants because her mother will not stop for the bathroom. Gladys starts a scalding hot bath. Norma Jeane, naked, is terrified of getting into the water. Gladys tells her that she is the reason her father left. Norma Jeane runs into the hallway to get help. A man opens his door, covers her up, and helps her.

Miss Flynn tells Norma Jeane that her mother is doing better, and she can go see her. Her doll has been spared from the fire her mother started in their home. Gladys had been taken out of her home, naked and strapped down, on a stretcher. Norma Jeane is temporarily cared for by Miss Flynn and Mr. Clive. She hears Miss Flynn crying that while she loves the girl, she cannot keep her. The two say they want to take Norma Jeane to the hospital to see her mother, but this does not happen. Jess and Clive take Norma Jeane to the Los Angeles Orphans Home Society. Norma Jeane protests violently.

Norma Jeane believes her father would come for her if she were pretty enough, and she no longer remembers who brought her to the orphanage. Norma Jeane meets two girls named Debra Mae and Fleece, both of whom faced terrible ordeals before arriving at the orphanage. Norma Jeane hates her mother for abandoning her, but she also worries that her mother will not know where to find her. She can no longer cry. Children frequently steal at the orphanage, but nobody wants Norma Jean’s soiled doll.

The night before Christmas, two celebrities come to the orphanage, “the darkly handsome Prince and the beautiful blonde Princess,” to hand out gifts to the children (76). The kids clamor for gifts as cameras flash, and the Prince lifts Norma Jeane up. He gives her a stuffed tiger, which is eventually stolen from her.

This chapter is told in three parts. As the chapter opens, Norma Jeane waits for her mother to allow her to be adopted. Gladys has already refused to give up her parental rights to two previous couples who wanted to adopt Norma Jeane. Dr. Mittelstadt, Norma Jeane’s mentor and the head of the orphanage, tells Norma Jeane they will pray her mother says yes. The doctor has already given Norma Jeane a book about Christian Science.

Previously, Gladys refused to allow Norma Jeane’s adoption because the only identity she has left is as that of a mother. Norma Jeane begins to hate her mother for her refusal to let her start anew. Gladys sends a letter to Norma Jeane telling her that she will never let her be adopted. She says she will one day be able to bring her home.

Emotionally, Norma Jeane is about eight or nine years old, but in reality, she is 12 years old. Norma Jeane secretly believes that she can avoid menstruation if she prays to God. She believes this because of how she interprets Christian Science. She is shocked when she menstruates for the first time. She feels shame but simultaneously believes that there is no shame with God. Norma Jeane does not take aspirin for her menstrual pain because of her Christian Science beliefs.

Norma Jeane and her mother have not had contact with each other since Gladys’s last letter. Norma Jeane tells Dr. Mittelstadt that she prayed to be adopted, but the woman tells her that prayer brings people into harmony with being; it does not change it. Norma Jeane is mad at Dr. Mittelstadt’s God. Dr. Mittelstadt tells her that they can put her in a foster home, and Norma Jeane wishes for any home.

Norma Jeane refuses to use sanitary napkins. She has a secret daydream in which she takes off her clothes so she can be truly seen, and she calls her naked reflection in the mirror her Magic Friend. This Magic Friend is not afraid. She continuously prays for her menstruation to stop, and she tries to hide it from the other girls.

Norma Jeane begins to develop physically. She knows that boys have penises because she has been forced to see them. She also faintly recalls seeing the penises of Gladys’s adult male friends and being asked to touch them.