POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins

POOR MISS FINCH by Wilkie Collins

24 January 2010

Wives and Daughters: #16 (chaps 51-54): Nov. 1865

Dear Serial Readers,

Gaskell and death: this installment features Osborne's (anticipated) death and its rippling effects, including the squire's intense sorrow along with his retreat from the pit of grief through the charm of an unexpected (to him) grandchild. Here is du Maurier's illustration (see above) with the caption "Maman, maman!" when baby Roger Stephen Osborne Hamley cries out as his mother swoons with the apprehension that Osborne has died. And of course there's Molly, always quick to offer solace.

I liked Gaskell's recognition of the limits of and harm to Molly as caregiver extraordinaire. After all, her father routinely turns to her to convey unpleasant news to others, and here she's back at Hamley Hall tending to a bereft father and daughter-in-law. Molly's mental and physical exhaustion isn't surprising, and it's through the wonderful Lady Harriet's letter that Cynthia promptly returns from London to her step-sister's side. As Josh mentioned, Cynthia's affection for Molly and recognition of her worth has the added benefit of elevating Cynthia in our eyes. In addition, her assertion, "Molly, Roger will marry you!" attests to her perceptive abilities and the romantic logic that's been clear to us for a while now. Also, Cynthia's evident concern for Molly helps to balance her violent rejection (as Julia mentioned) at the end of the last installment. What will become of Cynthia? Do you suppose she'll end up married to Henderson of London rather than Preston, or not married at all? That last option, the "old maid" she finds herself most suited for, somehow seems unlikely to me because marriage is what ultimately redeems and rewards young female characters of novels of this era. And Cynthia, while erring, does have redeeming qualities too.

I think the squire is a wonderful character too, his gruffness in human relations clearly not due to hardness, but to clumsiness around emotions. By the way, if any of you happened to watch the Masterpiece Theatre "Emma," the actor Michael Gambon, who plays Emma's father, also has the role of Squire Hamley in the BBC adaptation (he also plays Dumbledore for you Harry Potter fans). Mr. Gibson is a similar portrait of this masculine emotional awkwardness (Eliot's "emotional elephant" for her doctor character, Lydgate). Do any of the younger men suggest an improvement in this department? Roger's early sensitivity to Molly's distress over her father's remarriage might be one such indication. Others?

I've mentioned in an earlier comment how Gaskell often treated death in more detail and complexity than I find in many other Victorian novels. This November 1865 installment is especially poignant on the subject since Gaskell died suddenly on November 12th while at tea with family members in a new home she had purchased with her income as a writer. At that point, she had already written the December installment, and had a chapter finished of the final installment, to appear in January 1866. I hope you all have an edition of the novel that includes Frederick Greenwood's (editor of the The Cornhill) postscript. I'll be interested to hear whether you also find the novel's conclusion rather evident, despite its unfinished state. We'll have a very very short installment in two weeks.

Next time, chaps 55-59, for December 1865. Then the last chapter Gaskell wrote, along with Greenwood's postscript for the week after (Feb. 7th). If you don't have the postscript handy, just email me and I'll send it to you. Then we'll take a couple of weeks to read Wilkie Collins's "Miss or Mrs?" novella. You can download this from Project Gutenberg. If you happen to have a Kindle or Sony Reader you can download/upload for free onto such a device! Or else you can just print it out (or read on your screen). I'm looking forward to reading the story on my Kindle, so that I can blend our latest reading technology with the Victorian corollary--paper periodical literature that allowed for cheaper, easier, more rapid circulation.

Until next time,
Serial Susan

4 comments:

Kari said...

Oh, Aimee looks so French in that engraving!

I couldn't resist. It's a great picture, and I agree with Susan about the installment: this is a very nice section that captures the grief of Osborne's death while also showing the range of emotions of the rest of the participants. At least, I think that's agreeing with Susan!

This installment has such a change in tone from most of the book--though perhaps really all the scenes with the Squire after his wife dies have a more somber tone than do the scenes back in Hollingford.

After I speculated last week that a man couldn't lose his character as easily as a woman, I was struck in Chapter 52 that Mr. G. points out that the Squire's suggestions that Osborne hadn't really married that Frenchwoman "impugn[e] his character." And the Squire is quick to correct himself.

I also noted the odd thought Mr. G. has that engagement can only be broken off by mutual consent in chapter 51, and his defensiveness toward Molly's questions in Chapter 52 (she's not qualified to judge, he tells her over and over, and then he also doubts her when she tells him that Aimee won't be giving up the child). He seems guided by a strong notion that only men can make judgments and decisions throughout this section, and I wonder if Mrs. Gaskell is somewhat critiquing him. Molly and Harriet, after all, make some very good judgments.

I found the installment much more somber than predicted by Cynthia's piqued hints at the end of the previous installment.

I don't mind, though, that Cynthia gets shipped off to new happiness in London, and yes it's delightful that Harriet gets her back to Hollingford to tend to Molly in an appropriate manner.

I look forward to the BBC version which I hope is coming next on our netflix queue! I know now that I can watch all of Disc one with no surprises! Well, I'm assuming that Disc 2 contains some of the story, too. (And by the way, Michael Gambon is also marvelous in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, where really he's only the voice, but you can recognize him in the puppet, too.)

I was a little disappointed by the chapter titled "Molly Gibson's Worth is Discovered" because the Squire already knew her worth, as we know--I guess the townsfolk rediscover her worth now.

Off to bed with Chapter 55!

Daun said...

I'm struck by the way Gaskell removes Molly as her narratorial focus by making her ill in the last chapter of this installment. Nothing important has occurred to herself yet--no love, no great action so far--but Molly has in a way served as a participant observer for us readers, seeing, watching, listening and caring for others. Her role as a observer breaks down when her subject/self is devoured by too much "event-ness" around her.

This narrative technique also reminds me of Esther Summerson in Bleak House. Esther also observes so many things at once and fell ill at the end of the novel. Most of heroines in the Bildungsroman fall ill some time in the narrative in that sense. While Dickens alternate between first-person and omniscient narrator in Bleak House, Gaskell's omniscient narrator skillfully vacillates between making Molly visible and invisible as a narrative focus of the novel.

readerann said...

It’s a lovely illustration, the line of Molly’s posture effusing empathy.

In this installment again I’m struck with the novel’s holistic view of health, how characters’ emotional states parallel their physical health, their “nervous fevers,”—Osborne under the stress of keeping a wife and keeping his wife a secret; Molly in worry over everyone from Cynthia to the Hamley clan; Aimee’s extended collapse in raw grief; Mrs G. getting “cross” since being ill.

And I’m still stuck on Cynthia. She’s endlessly interesting for her various dimensions, as if her character reaches as far horizontally as Molly’s does in depth. I find her as likable for her defects as for her moments of grace. In some ways, she remains a more believable character to me than Molly is. And I don’t see that Cynthia has a future as a spinster. Independent as she is, in some ways, she needs, by her own admission, adoration (my word, not hers). She may end up a serial wife, though that seems uncommon of the time. Maybe a serial lover. I say that with all kindness, of course. At first I felt critical of her for her many references to being abandoned by her mother when she needed a mother most, and for blaming her mother for her own inability to love. When I stop judging her and just listen, she is telling us that she has a wound. This makes her a universal character, for me. She is not denying her wound, and I respect her for that. How she will handle it is another matter, and her, not her mother’s, responsibility. She has her whole life to work it out.

Mr G. is almost as varied a character as Cynthia, but more subtly so. His weakest moment was in choosing to marry the second Mrs G,, though a case could be made for his reasoning at the time, and of the time. I too blanched when he dismissed Molly’s questions about Osborne’s death, but chalked his brusqueness up to not wanting to go into medical detail. But after Kari’s comment, I read again. What I missed first time is his guilt. It seems to cause his sharp tone, and he can’t own up. (He turns tender toward Molly once she reveals the secret she’s been bearing.) Later, the squire rather gives Mr G. a taste of his own medicine, cutting him off when they are discussing why Osborne didn’t tell the squire of his marriage and child: “You know nothing about it, sir,” the squire says. Throughout the book, though, Mr G. has his wise moments, and I like him for it. When, for example, (Ch. 54) Molly wants to intercede with the squire in Aimee’s behalf, Mr G discourages her: “Wait quietly. Time enough when nature and circumstance have had their chance, and have failed”; and when Mrs. G says that Cynthia’s leaving London to see an ailing Molly is “very foolish,” Mr G. says, “Very foolish. But sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.”

I didn’t answer any of Susan’s good questions, off on another wavelength.

Unknown said...

Like Kari, I also thought that the title "Molly Gibson's Worth is Discovered" was a little strange. Surely we've figured things out by now! I suppose it makes more sense if we think about others in the novel seeing all her positive qualities -- their views are going to be in accord with ours.

I'm fascinated with a character who's been offstage for a long time now -- Roger. Since Daun mentioned Bleak House, Roger seems to me a lot like Esther Summerson's own future husband, Allan Woodcourt. Both are admirable characters who are meant to be paired with the heroine of the novel. And both slip out of sight for huge chunks of their respective novels. (It might be a sign of how much they recede that I had to look up Woodcourt's name but would never forget Esther. I wonder if I'll do the same for Roger and Molly after this novel's done?) I wonder why these two characters, admirable as they are, seem to be pushed off to the margins. Is it that their goodness makes them uninteresting for the conflict and drama that fuels a story?

And this has nothing directly to do with Wives and Daughters or even serial reading, but I would be interested to hear from Susan about the reading experience on the Kindle when we get to Wilkie Collins. Should we all be making the leap into the e-book age?