66 pages • 2 hours read
Armistead MaupinTales of the City
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Mary Ann Singleton
Mary Ann is ostensibly the novel’s protagonist. Though the novel is an ensemble piece, Mary Ann provides the reader with a blank slate on which to etch the images of San Francisco. She arrives as an innocent, inexperienced young girl, and the reader learns about the particular nature of the city by exploring it with Mary Ann. Whether it is learning about the various night clubs or the suicide switchboard or even the names of the streets, Mary Ann’s lack of knowledge is designed to provide a conduit through which the reader can vicariously explore a vivacious and exciting city.
The key to this is establishing Mary Ann’s innocence. In a chapter titled “Taking the Plunge,” Mary Ann arrives in San Francisco on vacation and decides to stay forever. It seems an impulsive decision, made in accordance with “three Irish coffees” (9) and her “Mood Ring” (9). This decision-making process—impulsive, almost childlike—reflects the lack of serious commitments which affect her life. At 25, she has nothing to prevent her from moving across the country. She has no partner, no children, and a job which she can quit by passing a message along via her mother. Mary Ann, a Cleveland girl, sees the potential available in San Francisco and is besotted enough to uproot her entire life. Her struggle to interrupt her own mother during the phone call reveals how much she is stepping outside of her parents’ shadow. San Francisco is the city of opportunity in which she can make a new identity for herself. This is key to Mary Ann’s character, but also helps to introduce the reader to the book’s fictionalized version of San Francisco.
This innocence evolves and changes over the course of the novel. Many characters remark upon it. Connie refers to Mary Ann as a “‘[p]oor baby’” (11); Mona is incredulous when Mary Ann confuses Coca-Cola with cocaine; and Michael refers to “‘the boring residence of Mary Ann Singleton’” (113) when answering her phone. Following her affair with Beauchamp, Mary Ann takes this innocence and turns it into an identity. Her time away at the cabin in the woods and the aftermath of the coupling teaches her that she is not happy indulging in all of her hedonistic desires. Unlike many of the other characters, she enjoys simple, somewhat innocent pleasures. In a fast-paced city, Mary Ann stands out by favoring a slow-paced lifestyle. She volunteers at the switchboard, she befriends Norman (whom she believes to be an older, more reserved figure), and she steps back from the nightclub scene which so enamors everyone else. By the midpoint of the novel, Mary Ann is more self-aware and more comfortable with herself.
However, opting for the slower-paced lifestyle does come back to haunt Mary Ann when she finds herself caught in a strange dynamic with Norman. Though she likes him and appreciates his sincerity, she is aware that something is wrong. In this instance, Mary Ann’s innocence comes back to haunt her. She would never have believed that Norman could have been a child pornographer or a pedophile. Though she believes he is lying, she never expected the lies to be quite so massive or so dark. Rather than go to the police, she confronts Norman. Mary Ann’s innocence suggests that there still might be some rational explanation or some redeemable quality in Norman. Norman himself knows that this is not the case. He tumbles and falls from the cliff and—in that moment—Mary Ann’s perpetual innocence is confirmed. She tries to save him, despite his crimes. Through Mary Ann, the audience learns the true nature of the city of San Francisco. Mary Ann teaches the audience that there is always a possibility for redemption and that it should always be sought, even in the darkest moments.
Mona Ramsey
As a successful copywriter who has excelled in both New York and San Francisco, Mona seems to be adept at moving through the fast-paced, sexualized world of the west coast city. Though she is from a similar background to Mary Ann, she is vastly more experienced and at home in the city. However, there are ways in which her past is more complicated and has fed into her present.
Like Mary Ann, Mona has moved out west and slowly lost regular contact with her parents. While Mary Ann and Michael still talk on the phone on a regular basis, Mona has not talked to her mother in eight months. Later in the text, she mentions that her father “‘left my mother when I was a baby’” (243). Though she does not communicate directly with her mother in the text, it becomes clear that the relationship is fractured at best. Mona’s mother has hired Norman to investigate her daughter’s whereabouts, though he is slow to update her on what is happening. By the end of the novel, Mona is still estranged from her mother and does not seem to be keen to change this in the near future.
Partly, this is due to the surrogate mother figure she has in her life. Mrs. Madrigal and Mona are close, so much so that Mona’s departure from the house causes a great deal of upset for Mrs. Madrigal. She frequently asks Michael about Mona and laments that they have fallen out of touch. Much like Mona’s biological mother, Mona falls out of communication and struggles to keep up the lines of dialogue. This issue is resolved as Mona returns to the Christmas party and asks for forgiveness.
The depth of Mona and Mrs. Madrigal’s relationship is only hinted at. For example, it is first suggested that Mona and Mrs. Madrigal’s first meeting was a chance interaction involving brownies. It is later revealed that Mrs. Madrigal was already aware of Mona’s reputation because she had read Mona’s copywriting work and felt compelled to meet. Mrs. Madrigal has allowed the myth to perpetuate for years and only reveals the truth after Mona has already moved out. It begs the question in the reader’s mind of exactly what it was about Mona that appeals so strongly to Mrs. Madrigal, though answers are not provided in this particular book.
The specter of parental relationships also affects Mona’s lover, D’orothea. Throughout the book, Mona presents as a typical heterosexual woman. When D’orothea arrives in San Francisco, it is revealed that she used to be in a relationship with Mona. This notion—of hiding the truth about one’s self in plain sight—returns later in the text, motivated by a desire to reconnect with parents. Though Mona abandons her own mother and loses contact with Mrs. Madrigal, she feels compelled to reunite D’orothea with her own parents. She tracks down the family and invites them to dinner, perhaps motivated by guilt and her failure to do the same for her own parents. When they arrive, D’orothea’s parents reveal her great secret: that she is actually white, pretending to be African-American. Like Mary Ann learning about Norman’s true nature, Mona never expected the truth to be revealed in quite so shocking a manner. Unlike Mary Ann, who attempts to save Norman, Mona leaves D’orothea alone to reconnect with her parents while moving back into 28 Barbary Lane. She has witnessed D’orothea’s struggles and wishes to reconnect with the closest thing she has to a parent in her life: Mrs. Madrigal, who instantly agrees to the proposal. In learning about others’ travails with their parents, Mona is able to reconnect with her other matriarchal figure.
Beauchamp Day
If Mary Ann Singleton is the novel’s ostensible protagonist, then Beauchamp Day is the novel’s ostensible antagonist. Over the course of the book, he succeeds in angering, annoying, insulting, or ignoring almost all of the characters. By the final chapters, there are few characters left who have any regard for his well-being or his success. Beauchamp’s wife, lovers, and father-in-law all have cause to loathe him and, finally, he is confronted with the consequences of his actions. Beauchamp’s character can be charted over the course of three relationships: Mary Ann (a lover), DeDe (his wife), and Jon (another lover). While he treats the former two characters poorly and leaves them dejected and heartbroken, he receives that treatment in kind from Jon.
When introduced from Mary Ann’s perspective, Beauchamp is something of a charmer. She recognizes that he is a handsome yet irresponsible man, though she “may have even liked him for his irresponsibility” (31). From the very first moments, they have a flirtatious, somewhat reckless relationship. As the son-in-law of the boss and an important figure, Beauchamp is a central pillar of the company. Mary Ann is a lowly secretary with everything to lose. Nevertheless, he is soon taking her out for drinks, and the two engage in an affair. Beauchamp makes little attempt to hide his infidelity. He takes Mary Ann to busy restaurants and happily stands beside her desk all day. Even his father-in-law is able to notice where his interests lay. Mary Ann is swept along by the charm, and they travel out to a cabin to spend the weekend together. The trip ends in disaster. Not only do they bicker, but the post-cabin fallout is acrimonious and turns Mary Ann against Beauchamp. He does not care. He even carefully arranges the artifacts of their affair—Mary Ann’s scarf—and leaves it in a place where DeDe can easily find it. Mary Ann’s affair with Beauchamp is clearly not his first extramarital coupling and succeeds in showing the audience how little he values his wife and women in general.
As such, Beauchamp’s relationship with DeDe is telling. He makes it explicitly clear that he does not want to have kids and rarely goes to any great length to hide his infidelity. This embarrasses DeDe, but not as much as she would be embarrassed by a divorce. She is reduced to phoning her father in tears and forcing him to intervene on her behalf. Even as the novel begins, it is clear that Beauchamp does not value his marriage. For a brief moment, at least, he seems recommitted to his wife: When DeDe returns from the fat farm, he apologizes to her, and they are “a pair again” (158). This continues a short while, though DeDe is hiding her pregnancy from Beauchamp at this time. She goes to extraordinary lengths to preserve her reputation, sleeping with the gossip columnist to keep him quiet. When DeDe talks about pregnancy with Beauchamp, he reiterates that he has no interest in children and tells her to “‘[g]o get somebody else to knock you up’” (212), but he will not pay for the baby or live with it. Though the comment is framed as a joke, both DeDe and the reader know the truth. Beauchamp, through his rampant chauvinism, has betrayed DeDe once again; after the great lengths she has travelled to preserve her reputation and her pregnancy, she finally understands that her husband will never truly support her.
These constant betrayals make Beauchamp’s final relationship all the more satisfying. When it is revealed that Beauchamp is not strictly heterosexual, he seems to gain an increasing interest in Jon. He phones Jon at work and tries to arrange a date, crossing over boundaries which Jon tries to erect. It seems as though Beauchamp is trying to do to Jon what he has done to Mary Ann and DeDe. Jon witnesses Beauchamp’s controlling behavior up close and tells him that he cannot trust him. Jon also knows about DeDe’s pregnancy and reveals this information. In one moment, he has taken away what Beauchamp wants (Jon’s attention) and shattered his marriage (by revealing the pregnancy). Beauchamp reacts angrily, but there is nothing he can do. Jon’s departing words lambast Beauchamp: “‘She could have done better than you’” (248).
