The Transit of Venus

Caro Bell grows up in Sydney, Australia; her half-sister Dora raises her after her parents die in a shipwreck. She is striking, with dark hair and eyes, a lean physique, and stylish, crisp-colored outfits. On her entry into London, Caro seems to Christian like the “unfinished” counterpart to Grace’s “completed” self (9), which suggests that her potential, both in looks and personality, is just beginning to reveal itself. Of the sisters, she is also less likely to express deference towards Britons simply because she is Australian.

As a young woman, Caro craves solitude and freedom from others’ interference—a reaction to being trapped in a codependent relationship with Dora during her youth, but also an implicit rebellion against the era’s gender roles, which viewed marriage as the proper occupation for a middle-class woman. As a result, she shuns the potential of intimacy with Ted, preferring to keep him at letter-writing distance while she embarks on an affair with married Paul Ivory. Paul proves to be Caro’s blind spot, as she is so taken in by his English, artistic nature that she does not see the cruelty and selfishness behind it. Indeed, Caro underestimates her capacity for attachment and almost loses herself in the affair, to the point that her colleague Valda considers her “a possibility lost”: She “might have done anything, but had preferred the common limbo of sexual love” (143).