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<title> The Perfect Wife </title>
In Remembering Babylon by David Malouf there are several characters that are intimately described. His perspective is always shifting from one person to another and one character can be described from several different views. Ellen McIvor is the one that I perceive as shifting the most. During the first half of the book she is nearly always viewed through the eyes of others and she takes on slightly different characteristics each time the view shifts. Later we encounter her own thoughts. She is a round and complex character but she plays a minor part in the novel. 
Ellen McIvor appears, in the eyes of the people in the village, as a calming presence, a person who is more down-to-earth than her husband. She is also the one who acts or make others act in response to an event. Her introduction into the novel is as acting when other people seem stupefied. All the people of the village stand "awe-struck" staring at Gemmy and she is the first person to recover. She reproves her charge Lachlan "...,told him for heaven's sake to cool down, and his uncle, woken as if from a dream, stepped in and took a hand to him" (p.7). At the same time her actions never seem to reach beyond those acceptable of a housewife. She is a housewife in all aspects. On Page 37 Gemmy views her as the mother of two little girls, affectionate, domestic and shy. She is weak and mild, calm and accepting. Weak because Gemmy feels that she needs help, accepting because he is never afraid that she will judge him. On the other hand she is given a ladylike stature, she "washed with her own hands" (p.41) Gemmys clothes. This passage reminds of a queen in a fairy tale that does with her own hands things that could have been delegated to others. The passage is more strange as she is the daughter of a miner and the wife of a peasant, there could not possibly be a servant that washed the clothes instead of Ellen. 
The women neighbours of the village try to undermine Ellen McIvor and make her insecure in the matter of Gemmy, but they have respect for her, "She welcomed them, frostily at first ..... They knew it and took her as she was" (s.161). In both passages where the relation with the neighbouring housewives is mentioned she is described as frosty. This strengthens the impression of ladylikeness. It seems as if she is more sensible than the other women in the village who are described as chatty and mean. There is also an air of independence in her relation to them. Neighbourly relations are needed for survival but she is not emotionally dependent on them. 
In the McIvor family she has authority; ".. their mother announced that a cousin was to come out and join them" (p.53). It is she that makes this announcement and not the father. On the other hand she is; "his wife making silent appeal that just this once he might relax his strictness and indulge them" this is strange since she is here put in the same category as her children and that does not concur with the rest of characterisation of her. The reason could be that the narrator describes her character from different perspectives. In this instance she is the wife, she is always characterised as stronger when she is Ellen. This is also the case when described by Lachlan who sees her as worried and fussy and in Janet, her daughter's, perspective more distant. This implies that she is more affectionate towards Lachlan than towards her girls. It changes later in the novel though where Ellen and Janet grow more close and at the moment when Ellen gives her daughter a kiss, one gets the impression that this is not usual. Overall Ellen is probably not very demonstrative but restrained, she is loving but detached.
The impression that is given of Ellen's own thoughts is that she feels great responsibility for her family. At night she is awake worrying and listening to her family sleeping, therefore she is also the first to wake when Gemmy is abducted (p.123). Her protectiveness appears to be especially turned towards her husband, and she does everything she can to make him feel confident. She cares for him but it is uncertain however whether she loves him. He was the man of her dreams, but Australia has made him severe and dull and he has taken her for granted for several years. Only when the village turns against them he "turned his full gaze upon her" (p. 108). She often thinks of the past and of the children she has lost, but she regrets nothing. She lives in the moment, the normality of the house chores keeps her terror, at not managing to keep her family safe, at bay (p.79).
Ellen is perfect, the perfect wife. It appears as if the author wanted to describe the angel of the household, the Victorian perfect wife. Weak and helpless but at the same time the guardian of the household who always stands behind her husband and family, strengthening them, making them act when necessary, herself acting only if it is within her boundaries. She has got all she wanted from life and is satisfied. She is not at all interested in stepping outside her boundaries but excels within them. Ellen has a relatively small part to play in relation to the protagonist, but she forces others to take action which in turn affect him. She also completes the picture of the village, through her we get to know how the other housewives react to events. She is a dynamic character that changes slightly towards the end of the novel when she starts caring more for her daughter.
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