***Spoiler Alert*** Christabel Semi-delusional
Posted by Cassia on November 05, 1997 at 18:57:50:
In response to I'm glad you persevered, written by Jane Elizabeth on November 04, 1997 at 14:23:31
] I'm pleased you enjoyed the second half better than the first, and that you read to the end. Your comments show that you DID get involved in the book, which is all we boosters ask.
Ditto.
] Come to think of it, you're right about Christabel's assumption about Ash snatching her baby. Really, could she have known him so little to think he would have done that? And it's a good point about HIM thinking SHE could commit murder. However, I suppose their states of mind were so frantic by that time that they had replaced the memory of their love with the obsessions of the present.
I've always put this down to Christabel becoming a bit delusdional as the pregnancy continues. Think of Sabine's diary,first the entry entitles 'April' then the 'Tuesday ' which follows. (pp. 402-3 in Random House editions.)
I said to him, she is not so unknowing, for her clothes have been let out,around the waist, under the arms, with firm enough lines of striching, with intelligent care...Gode said she had known case like that, of women who resoulutely refused to know their state and yet be brought to bed as sweetly as any heifer in a barn.
During all this time she has been very good to me, in her way, discussing this and that, asking to see my work, embroidering me, in secret, a little case for my scissors, a pretty thing with a peacock on it in blue and greeen silks, all eyes. But I cannot love her as I did, because she is not open, because she withholds what matters, because she makes me, with her pride or her madness, live a lie.
Christabel, despite having gone to Brittany to give birth is so resoulute in her desire not to become a mother that she deludes herself into thinking herself not pregnant. Before the journey with Ash Christabel believed she understood the implications of her actions but now she knows she did not comprehend. There can be no solitude in motherhood, the very nature of giving birth assures that. Christabel must learn to accept this.
] See...you have a lot to contribute here. If you're inclined, continued participation would be welcome!
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