“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”

“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar” is both a remembered song and a borrowed declaration of strength for Fern Woolbright. After spotting Charlie Treadaway and resolving to treat him as completely dead to her, Fern invokes the song’s defiant language while preparing to see James Frobisher. The episode makes the expression a measure of the distance between the self-sufficiency Fern tries to perform and the distress she cannot simply leave behind.

The Song’s History

Fern remembers the song as one her mother, Rosemarie Woolbright, played on repeat until Fern’s father banned the record from the house. The expression therefore returns with a small family history attached: it was once loud and familiar enough to provoke a ban, and now it is available to Fern as a private source of resolve. She does not play the record; as she walks back to the bus stop, she hears it clearly in her head, along with the image of the black vinyl turning.

Defiance in Action

The song surfaces after Fern sees Charlie outside a snooker hall while sitting in a college window seat. She has been upset about him, but decides he is completely dead to her and turns her attention to looking good for James, her handsome soldier boyfriend, who is due to visit that weekend. At the Arndale Centre she buys shiny black patent-leather stilettoes, deciding that her Doc Martens do not fit the elegance and sophistication she wants to present. The shoes give physical form to a newly asserted attitude: she will be strong and will take no nonsense. The choice is not merely about clothing; Fern is actively trying to recast herself for the coming visit.

The Reversal and Its Meaning

As Fern mouths the song’s refrain on the bus, its confidence swells in her imagination. Yet once she settles on the back seat of the top deck, she begins crying and continues all the way to Didsbury. The contrast prevents the expression from functioning as a simple declaration of triumph: its force is real, but it cannot cancel her attachment to Charlie or the pain of seeing him. Her friends Felicity, Dee, and Jill Miller worry about her, and Jill brings tomato soup upstairs while they offer reassurances. Fern eats small buttered triangles of toast and pretends to listen, still straining to hear the front door. The song’s self-assertion thus accompanies not a completed break with Charlie but an effort to endure the uncertainty of waiting for him.