Diary of an Ordinary Woman (Forster) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
1. "I'm always writing about family relationships, what family means and the way duty and love are all mixed up."
Forster's novels often reveal the theme that love within the family becomes blurred with a sense of duty for her female characters. Discuss the idea that family pressures put a sense of obligation upon Millicent's life and that her life is restricted by her sex and the period in which she grows up (and the limitations upon women in this period).

2. A 98-year-old woman contacted Margaret Forster to propose that Forster edit her diaries for publication. She had kept a continuous record of her life from 1914-1995. Margaret Forster never did meet the woman in question, she cancelled their meeting because of family objections. Forster decided to pretend she had obtained and read the diaries. The result is a fictionalised memoir. How authentic do you find Forster's diary in light of the fact it is a "fictionalised memoir"? You may wish to look at the diary in terms of both the private life of Millicent (ie her fears, worries, joys and insecurities — do these seem real?) and the public life beyond her world. Does the social, political and historical background of change within the novel seem realistic?

3. After the first few diary entries, Margaret Forster describes Millicent as "outspoken, quite selfish, restless, ambitious and inclined to self-pity." How much does Millicent's personality change throughout the years? Do events and circumstances change her character? Discuss Millicent's personality and how it develops from her earliest diary entries and life as a young girl, right up until her last entries as an old woman.

4. Discuss the difference between Millicent and other women of her time. Do you see her as a modern woman with both her career and her views on pre-marital sex? You may wish to compare and contrast her with other women in her diary, perhaps above all with her sister, Tilda. How do their views differ?

5. Discuss the diary method as a form of narrative structure. Does it provide us with the necessary elements to create an interesting and absorbing story? What is your view of Margaret Forster's authorial interventions between the entries? Are these necessary to give us another viewpoint and voice aside from Millicent's own? What do these add to the novel?

6. "There was nothing ordinary about this woman. Indeed, I now wonder if there is any such thing as an ordinary life at all."—Introduction to Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Margaret Forster .... Forster's work cast light upon depths of difficulties of apparently ordinary lives. Discuss how Millicent's life is both ordinary (in that she goes through many of the same experiences of other women living in the war years) and extraordinary. Is Millicent herself extraordinary, or is it simply that the events she lives through make her so?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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