Susan Cox
I recently read “The Rose Code” by Kate Quinn. Based on real people and events, Quinn tells a fictionalized account of the code breakers working at Bletchley Park during World War II. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about code breaking and this time period, but I was even more captivated by Quinn’s main characters: Osla, Mab, and Beth, who all work to prove they are more than what others see at first glance.
Osla, based on the real life Osla Benning, is a Canadian-born socialite who wants to be seen as more than a “silly deb.” Mab, a fictional representation of the many women who worked at Bletchley Park, grew up in poverty in London’s East End and desperately wants a better life for herself, pushing her to remake herself into a more middle-class woman. Beth, a fictional composite of two real women, is shy and anxious, having been constantly told she was slow-witted, but she’s a whiz at crossword puzzles.
These three very different women become friends when Osla and Mab are billeted with Beth’s family when they come to work at Bletchley Park, and soon Beth is working there too. Both Mab and Osla begin with mundane jobs based on their perceived abilities but end up moving to jobs that allow them to use more of their skills helping them feel more useful. Beth’s transformation is more dramatic. She struggles to feel confident when assigned to a code breaking group because she believes she isn’t very bright. However, with encouragement from fellow codebreakers, she begins to use her ability to see patterns to break codes. After working around the clock to decrypt messages containing important battle plans, Beth finally feels she is good at something. Her newfound confidence helps her blossom and propels her to stand up to her overbearing mother.
I loved seeing Beth’s transformation from a shy, anxious, awkward young woman to a strong young woman who firmly makes her own choices. Her experience makes me contemplate how many people there are like Beth — those who are told they aren’t good at anything or at least not at the things most people consider valuable. Some are fortunate enough to have opportunities to discover their abilities, but many never have that chance.
I cringed when I read how Beth’s mother treated her, and I could also understand Osla’s desire to be taken seriously and Mab’s wish to move beyond her poor upbringing. How often do we
look at people and make decisions about them at first glance, dismissing them based on stereotypes? In doing so, we miss out on learning more about others and what they have to offer.
In the author’s note, Quinn acknowledges that Bletchley Park (BP) had a reputation for eccentricity. Thankfully, “the staff had an extraordinarily relaxed attitude toward weird personalities; square pegs weren’t required to fit into round holes, and in consequence [they] worked spectacularly well at their nearly impossible job.” Additionally, Quinn shares that “veterans remember finding an open-mindedness at BP that was sorely lacking in ordinary life. Women enjoyed a level of equality with male coworkers that they were unlikely to get on the outside for years or decades; homosexual members tended to be tacitly acknowledged and accepted; people who would today be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder could work without having to mask their neurodivergence.” This acceptance allowed the supposedly uncrackable Enigma codes to be broken, leading to the defeat of the Axis powers.
The success of Bletchley Park is a good reminder that when people feel accepted and valued, they can accomplish great things. I know that removing biases and defeating stereotypes is
something we continue to struggle with and often seems next to impossible in our highly contentious world, but I’m going to work to dismiss my snap judgements one person at a time,
and I hope you will too.
Susan Cox is one of The Republic’s community columnists, and all opinions expressed are those of the writer. She is an avid reader, an outdoor enthusiast, a mother, a grandmother, and an adjunct instructor of English at IUPUC. She can be reached at [email protected].
