The Stepford wives door Ira Levin

Ira Levin
The Stepford Wives

The Stepford Wives, Dell Publishing Co, New York, 190 pagina’s (eerste druk 1972)

Summary
Joanna Eberhart and her family are moving to Stepford, a small town in the country, because they need some rest.  Joanna’s husband, Walter, decides to join the Man’s Association. Joanna thinks of this as a ridiculous idea especially because she and her husband are active in the feminist association. She fills her days with photography, tennis and taking care of her children. It is difficult for her to find some friends in town because every woman in Stepford is the perfect housewife. Besides their passion for doing housework, they all look perfect. Eventually she becomes friends with Bobbie and Charmaine. Two women who aren’t that obsessed with housework as the rest of the women in town.

Suddenly, after a weekend with her husband, Charmaine is just as obsessed with housework as the rest of the Stepford wives. Bobbie and Joanna think that it’s very strange that she has changed this suddenly. They do some research and come to the conclusion that maybe there is something wrong with the water. From that moment on Bobbie only drinks bottled water. Joanna doesn’t think that the water is that bad and she tries to find a house in a nearby village. Joanna also finds a new friend, Ruthanne. She’s also one of the women who doesn’t like housework that much.

After living in Stepford for four months Bobbie decides to stay a weekend alone with her husband. After that weekend Bobbie is changed just as much as Charmaine did before. She also looks like a perfect housewife and acts like one to. Joanna is worried. Charmaine and Bobbie both changed after four months and she also had lived in Stepford for nearly four months. She also discovers that almost all the woman who are now such perfect housewives where first members of Stepford’s women club, a feminists club. She tells her concerns to Bobbie and fears to become a housewife herself. When she tells her worries to Walter he thinks that she needs to see someone to talk to. She thinks that all women are turned in to robots after four months by the Men’s Association. That idea could be true because some of the members are great technicians who designed robots before.

When Walter wants to be alone with her for a weekend she connects all the pieces and tries to escape. Some members of the Men’s Association try to stop her and prove her that she is wrong. The next month Ruthanne meets Joanna in the supermarket. She turns out to be a perfect Stepford wife. When Ruthanne goes home she writes the whole story she heard down.

Characters
- Joanna is a woman who is a feminist. She would rather practice her hobbies then doing the housework. Also she likes it to talk to friends with a cup of coffee
- Walter is Joanna’s husband. He seems to be a feminist supporter himself, but in the book he turns out to be not as much of a supporter of feminists as he says the whole time.
- Charmaine loves to play tennis and hates housework until the weekend alone with her husband. Before that she doesn’t have a good relationship with her husband. The more he is out the happier she is. After the weekend however, Charmaine loves her husband and is willing to do anything for him
- Bobbie loves photography almost as much as Joanna and also hates housework until the weekend alone with her husband.

Essential concept of the book
This book is written to entertain the reader. It’s a thriller and it is meant to be exiting up to the end. In that, Ira Levin is succeeded. The title of the book refers to all the wives in Stepford who are the perfect housewives. On the cover there are several identical-looking woman who all look perfect

The form
The book is written in chronological order. It is written from an all-knowing perspective. The style of writing isn’t very special. It’s not difficult to read and that is very nice. The sentences aren’t very long and there are a lot of dialogues. The end is sort of open. You know that Joanna is changed but you don’t know how exactly and you also don’t know what’s going to happen with Ruthanne.

Qualification
This book is a thriller and that’s a sort of book that I like very much. It is very exiting. The characters are very believable. I think that the story is very unique also. I’ve never heard of another book of which the subject is somehow the same as this book. I saw the movie first and the story line of the movie is very different from the book. Especially the end, in which Joanna turns into a Stepford wife is very different from the movie end, in which she turns out to pretend to be a Stepford wife. I liked the ending from the movie better because it was less predictable and because I don’t like open endings that much.