Patrick Hamilton portrays women so misogynisticly in Hangover Square that we fail to get a sense of a single positive portrayal of a woman that George, the novel's protagonist, encounters in his trips. Instead, we feel a vaguely positive attitude towards a woman only when we hear about George's aunt at the beginning of the novel or George's sister, who has died; even then, neither of these two women is met directly by the reader. Mainly, the representation of women is portrayed through Netta. Through Hamilton's use of free direct speech, the reader can assume that the ideas in the narrative are unbiased and separate from George's thoughts because the novel is not written in the first person. We think we are outside of his consciousness; however, the narrative shows us insights into George's thoughts, which in turn stimulate the reader to empathize with him and understand his opinions. Because of this design, readers' opinions of Netta and the other women in the novel are created to encourage negative thoughts about women. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first woman we meet in the novel other than George's aunt is the woman on the train who joins George in his compartment. George has not even spoken to this woman before, nor has he ever seen her before, and we are immediately met with a "cold woman" who "roughly and mercilessly grabs" the doorknob. This tells the reader that George's attitude towards women is not positive; this woman simply opened the door of a compartment to sit down, and George finds the maneuver offensive and intrusive. This woman, "apparently of the servant class" (p.26), is described as common and rowdy, similar to the way the group of Brighton girls are portrayed later in the novel. We learn that another woman standing on the platform wearing a hairnet had "intentionally" (p.27) tried to hurt George by making him think of Netta, as if women were constantly engaged in "torture" (p.27) him and exist only to cause him pain. Hamilton directly informs the reader of George's feeling of deep pain and torture simply at the slight thought of Netta; this is the fault of two strangers who, in reality, did nothing wrong. When we meet Netta, when George arrives at Netta's flat in Earl's Court, we also come across George's fear of her. Netta's "beauty" is described as "a weapon from the arsenal of her beauty". This statement shows how George sees their relationship as a war or a game, in which he is losing due to his weaknesses in her "weapons". His love for her makes him weak, and the fact that this is revealed to the reader shows that he is aware of his love and his weakness. This depiction of something essentially positive (her “beauty”) compared to a “weapon” shows how Hamilton creates a misogynistic narrative while respecting the fact that women are destructive and pernicious. Additionally, greeting characters is referred to as a "game of calling people by their last names." This description feels cold, and the reference to their relationship as a game suggests that perhaps George is aware that he is losing this game or this war but does not take it so seriously; he is so infatuated with Netta that he makes the negative aspects of their contact less real by referring it to something that is "just a game". Hamilton thus shows the reader that, even if George loves Netta, there is also an underlying hatred that the reader is also destined to intuit. Later in the.