Looking for Jane

Evelyn Taylor and Margaret Roberts are roommates at St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers in the 1960s. They both give birth to baby girls at the home and suffer under the cruel conditions that require them to unwillingly give their children up for adoption shortly after birth. In Part 1 of the novel, the chapters from Evelyn’s perspective center on Evelyn Taylor. In Parts 2-4, the woman who calls herself Evelyn Taylor is actually Margaret (Maggie) Roberts. The real Evelyn dies by suicide in the home a few weeks after her baby’s adoption. Maggie attempts to die by suicide as well but then fakes her death and assumes Evelyn’s name for the remainder of her life.

Although Evelyn and Margaret are two different characters, their narratives blend together. “Evelyn” is two different women but also a point-of-view character and protagonist in the novel. Under the name of Dr. Evelyn Taylor, Maggie pursues a career in family medicine and is involved with the Jane Network. Informed by her own horrible experiences as a young mother, she passionately believes in Bodily Autonomy and Reproductive Rights. Evelyn’s name swap and career are two examples of the significant transformation that she experiences in her coming-of-age story—a journey from powerlessness to independence. She marries a gay man and close friend, Tom, to give herself freedom and security. She takes great personal risks to provide abortions even though they are illegal because she wants to give other women the freedom and choices that she didn’t have.

Maggie is Nancy’s mother. Under the name of Dr. Evelyn Taylor, she spends much of her adult life searching for her daughter, whom she was forced to give up. Ironically, they find each other and work in close proximity to one another for many years without ever realizing their connection. Their reunion as mother and daughter is the culmination of the novel’s plot and the resolution of the central conflict in Evelyn’s “overcoming the monster” story arc—the monster, in her case, being the wrongs that were done to her and her friend at St. Agnes’s.

Nancy Mitchell is the third point-of-view character and protagonist. Nancy was born to Maggie Roberts in St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers. Nancy’s birth name was Jane, but she was renamed Nancy when the Mitchells adopted her.

Nancy experiences the most internal transformation of any of the three protagonists. After decades of keeping secrets from the people in her life, she learns to value honesty and to see the importance of trust in building strong relationships. Nancy acts on this lesson by reestablishing a relationship with her ex-husband, Michael, and by agreeing to meet her birth mother. The author uses a close third-person perspective to grant access to Nancy’s thoughts and feelings. This perspective contrasts what Nancy says and reveals to the world with what she hides. This characterization technique allows the reader to witness and understand Nancy’s transformation as she matures over the course of the novel.

Nancy is motivated to keep secrets because she doesn’t want to scare or upset her loved ones. She values peace and stability, often at the expense of honesty or internal calm. It is a mark of Nancy’s transformation that she eventually realizes that some secrets are worth revealing and some conversations are worth having, even if they are difficult or upsetting. Nancy is deeply committed to reproductive rights, with her own experiences of both witnessing and receiving illegal abortions motivating her volunteer work with the Jane Network. 

Sister Mary Teresa is the primary antagonist in Looking for Jane. Sister Teresa is a static character. Through her profession as a nun and the warden of St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers, Sister Teresa is the primary representation of an unjust religious, cultural, and social system that deprives young women like Maggie and Evelyn of their bodily autonomy.

In a novel where most female characters are in some way associated with motherhood, no language or imagery links Sister Teresa with maternal feeling—a mark of her coldness and cruelty. The author characterizes Sister Teresa as a harsh and unbending character through dialogue and physical description. She “marches” rather than walks, regards Evelyn with “cold eyes,” and speaks in “instruction more than invitation” (17-18). Evelyn and Maggie nickname Sister Teresa “the watchdog,” a moniker that further reinforces her role as the embodiment of a surveillance society that does not trust or empower young women.

Sister Mary Agatha, another nun at St. Agnes’s Home for Unwed Mothers, is a foil to Sister Teresa. Where Sister Teresa is harsh and unbending, Sister Agatha shows small kindnesses to the young women at the home. Her physical description aids in her characterization as a gentle force for good: “She’s diminutive in stature, plain and pale, and reminds Evelyn of a house mouse” (42). Like a mouse, Agatha is meek; she offers what help she can to the “inmates” of the home, but she does not take big risks to ask or speak on their behalf.

Although Sister Agatha is not a mother, the author associates her with warmth and caregiving through her characterization. Evelyn, for instance, thinks that Sister Agatha might have made a “good nanny” in another life. In this way, Sister Agatha develops the theme of Motherhood as Both Universal and Personal. As an ailing, aging patient in St. Sebastian’s Home for the Aged, Sister Agatha expresses grief and regret at how the women were treated at St. Agnes’s. This act of confession establishes her as a flawed but ultimately well-meaning religious figure.