\u201c\u2019Gerty, you have always been good to me; this last week as well. But that is the worst of you good people: you are as hard as stones. You bring me jelly; you sit up all night with me\u2014but you have never forgiven me. You know that is the truth.\u2019\u2026 Gertrude\u2019s head drooped lower and lower over the coverlet; her heart, which had been frozen within her, melted. In an agony of love, of remorse, she stretched out her arms, while her sobs came thick and fast, and gathered the wasted figure to her breast. \u2018Oh, Phyllis, oh, my child; who am I to forgive you? Is it a question of forgiveness between us? Oh, Phyllis, my little Phyllis, have you forgotten how I love you?\u2019\u201d (177-178).
This is the last interaction recorded between Phyllis and Gertrude, and it is clearly the narrative conclusion of Phyllis\u2019s life, as the next scene simply dully records Phyllis\u2019 death less than a week later, showing that the death itself is less emotionally resonant than the catharsis of this scene, when Gertrude is finally able to let go of her emotional distance and love her sister before her death.
In a material sense, the event of Phyllis\u2019s death harkens strongly back to the same Victorian trope that was the death of poor Lucy Westenra: being a woman who desired. Even more so than Lucy, Phyllis was sexually promiscuous and planned to commit adultery with the married Sidney Darrell. Even after Gertrude\u2019s intervention, it\u2019s already too late: while Phyllis\u2019 three sisters are all allowed to be happily married, she alone sickens and dies. Phyllis\u2019 question to her sister is rooted in this very social convention that she knows she has transgressed against. Gertrude cannot help but
Of course, nothing can save Phyllis at this point. As much as Gertrude may be beyond forgiving her sister, and as much as she may love her, this book will still be published for a Victorian audience, a society that does not forgive the promiscuity of women. Amy Levy cannot escape this convention, and neither can Phyllis. What Levy can do is challenge that convention with Gertrude\u2019s character. Not only does she forgive her sister, she dismisses the notion of Phyllis needing forgiveness altogether\u2014simply because she loves her. Despite Phyllis\u2019 \u201csin,\u201d Levy has created a character who is a human being and deserves to be loved no matter her virtue. Phyllis may die, but Gertrude at least knows that she doesn\u2019t deserve to.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201c\u2019Gerty, you have always been good to me; this last week as well. But that is the worst of you good people: you are as hard as stones. You bring me jelly; you sit up all night with me\u2014but you have never forgiven me. You know that is the truth.\u2019\u2026 Gertrude\u2019s head drooped lower and … Continue reading A Death Above the Shop<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}