Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses mental health conditions.

The protagonist and narrator, Lillian, goes on a geographical and temporal journey through New York City. The former highest-paid ad woman in America, Lillian cares about the way things look and appreciates when others do as well. She dresses well, in her youth enjoying the admiration of others and in her old age taking care and pride in her appearance. For her walk through the city, she dresses carefully in an emerald green dress, bright yellow tights, a blue hat, and her favorite “Helena Rubinstein Orange Fire lipstick [...] stockpiled in the 1950s” (15). Her frequent references to colors and the brands she uses highlight The Influence and Illusion of Advertising, but she also displays pragmatism in her choice of outerwear, donning her mink coat and practical boots.

She is in many ways the archetypal picaro, or main character of a picaresque novel. Her sentences are declarative and convey a forthright and even conspiratorial tone, but she frequently admits to small untruths, such as when she tells Skip the limo driver that she has people waiting at her destination.