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<title> Beneath the surface </title>
David Malouf's "Remembering Babylon" is a novel with many aspects worth considering, and the importance of the characters is one. Several realistically described characters give the novel credibility and depth, and also make the story more absorbing and alive. I will try to give an as thorough description as possible of Janet McIvor. She is the daughter of Jock and Ellen, the couple who first take care of Gemmy when he arrives in the settlement. Janet McIvor plays a large part in the novel as a whole, although she is not the principal character. I attempt to show what kind of person she is, and how she look upon things during the time of the novel, when she grows from a child into a young woman. Further, I will examine the methods the author uses to convey these facts to the reader. 
	Janet is very observant and thoughtful, and she has an ability to notice things which are not explicitly revealed in speech, but occur under the surface. An example is when Janet is visiting a neighbour, Mrs Hutchence, where the young adults are occupied with fortune-telling, although in reality they are playing secret games with each other, which Janet is not supposed to understand. But not only is she aware of these games, she is also able to analyse them further. "She saw something else as well...They only thought they were playing, because Leona managed things so cleverly, putting words into their mouths that they had never in fact spoken, and taking both parts herself. Janet was surprised how clear this was to her. The world recently, she thought, kept reaching out to show her things, to catch her attention and enlighten her." 
	Even though she is aware of more than other people, she keeps most of her insights in her mind. This makes her a rather introverted person, who can be hard to understand for people in her surroundings, but also, this gives her an inner strength. Gemmy finds this confusing. "She was a puzzle to him. He could never be sure what she was thinking. He knew the boy's thoughts because he wanted them to know...The girl's power was entirely her own. She needed no witness to it." Janet has no need to boast about herself and her knowledge, but has her strength within her, in contrast to her cousin Lachlan who needs to tell everyone of his experiences and plans. 	
	In Janet's relation to Lachlan the different roles of men and women emerge. Lachlan starts to learn men's skills and has an exciting and varying future ahead of him. When Janet realises that she is equal to him, that she can do all those skills as well and be as brave as he is, she finds the women's role far too predetermined to adjust to. She does not want life to be as predictable, and only by watching her mother she can see her own future, and she compares hers to Lachlan's. "She had no such vision of her own future. All she saw laid up for herself was what her mother presented, a tough pride in competence, in being unflagging and making no fuss. She admired her mother but the narrowness of it was terrible to her." As a result of these thoughts, Janet has a strong urge to broaden her horizon and discover other possibilities in life. 
	Janet is desperate to find something that tells her that there is more to the world than what she experiences. Her need for change is increasing. "She pored over books, anything she could lay her hands on that offered some promise that the world was larger, more passionate, crueller - even that would be a comfort - than the one she was bound to." She starts to grow out of her mentally Spartan environment and she finds refuge in her visits at Mrs Hutchence's, where she receives new experiences, and her mind gets new challenges. In addition, Janet becomes Mrs Hutchence's helper working with her hives and Janet evolves a passion for bees, which will influence the rest of her life and lead her to study them and create new breeds. By experiencing the different environment at Mrs Hutchence's, Janet gets an opportunity to develop in a different way than she would have otherwise. 
	The novel is told by an omniscient external narrator and the author either uses that narrator to tell about Janet, or focalizes through the minds of, in most cases, two characters to describe her. The narrator only gives a general picture of her, meanwhile the use of focalization broadens Janet's personality. It is mostly through her own thoughts we are told what kind of person she is, and since she is a rather thoughtful and introverted person, this adds to her personality. However, Janet reveals a great deal about her thoughts and feelings, which give the reader a more personal picture of her, and make her a more trustworthy character. Besides that, it is through Gemmy's thoughts we learn of certain traits of Janet's that he notices, but which others not quite perceive, especially her ability to grasp what is not explicitly revealed. "He would catch her regard upon him, it was solemn, and an odd feeling would come over him that she was trying to see right into him, to catch his spirit, aware, as the others were not, that he was not entirely what he allowed them to see." 	
	In brief, Janet is a complex character on her way of becoming an independent and strong woman, and the author has succeeded in making her as real as possible. She has got a few qualities which give her the strength to follow her will and devote herself to her studies of bees instead of following female traditions. Malouf conveys several traits in Janet which form a whole and she becomes a character with depth and credibility. Her choices, and the way she acts, seem like something a person like Janet would do in reality. Also the way Malouf tells about her, connects to her personality. As a character Janet keeps most of her thoughts and speculations to herself and processes them in her mind, and because of that, it seems natural that it is mostly through her own thoughts we know about her. By adding the view from another character, Gemmy, we get a more complete picture of her, and Janet comes to life.
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