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Popular Culture Review
walks, she has met her intellectual match. After a long tutelage on the art and
science of detecting, they become friends and bafflingly, despite their large age
gap (30-plus years), partners. This is attributable in part to Russell’s weighty and
age-inappropriate intellect but mostly to her tenacity.
Unlike her Bleak House counterpart Esther, Russell is precocious and
immodest, challenging Holmes and arguing with anyone who disagrees with her
regardless of social standing. Some of this disparity can be viewed through the
historical context of a Victorian {Bleak House) versus a 1920s {Regiment)
setting. However, one must assume the presentation of Russell as different from
Esther is intentional and aimed at offering a character more palatable to
feminists, as King explains. Russell is transparent in her desires and outspoken
and active in attaining them, everything that Esther cannot be, with the
exception of vital marriage. Similarities between the two protagonists, however,
repeatedly arise as the storyline of Regiment unfolds.
The most obvious parallel between Esther and Russell (apart from their both
being young, British, female narrators) is their status as orphans forced to live
with begrudging and psychologically abusive aunts. Regiment opens with
Russell living in anticipation of the closing of the “last year of [her] aunt’s
control of what she saw as the family purse” (3). Her justified disdain for her
aunt is outlined more explicitly in The Beekeepers Apprentice, as her aunt
passive-aggressively terrorizes her by refusing her adequate food and clothing,
despite the large inheritance in her possession. Esther suffers similar harm at the
hands of her original guardian, who she presumes is merely her godmother but
in reality is her maternal aunt. Her aunt’s disposition is best summarized in her
own words to her niece on Esther’s birthday, “It would have been far better,
little Esther, that you had had no birthday; that you had never been bom!”
(Dickens 30).
This passage also touches on the theme of body image. Much is made of the
fact that Esther is small in stature. She is almost obsessively referred to
throughout the text as the “little woman.” Quite the opposite is true of Russell
who is always referred to as tall with long limbs. The difference in their physical
presentations given the political significance of women’s bodies throughout
history cannot be overlooked.
A handy explanation is that this physical distinction extends and reinforces
the personality differences highlighted above. Russell is forward and assertive,
hence a tall physical presence. Esther plays the part of the traditional naive girl,
hence a “little woman.” However, we quickly see that, in Esther’s case, some of
this is lip service: “[Esther] has the vital quality of truthfulness, and a
willingness to observe evidence and to ask questions which equip her to guide
us into the story” (Bradbury xxi). So although Esther is as unfamiliar with
London and its ins and outs as Russell in Regiment (getting lost