{"id":1523,"date":"2021-09-08T13:06:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T17:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1523"},"modified":"2021-09-08T13:06:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-08T17:06:40","slug":"possession-in-sin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/09\/08\/possession-in-sin\/","title":{"rendered":"Possession in Sin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pg\u00a015, Paragraph 3<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“I scarcely think there\u00a0is a greater sin, Lucy,” he said, solemnly, “than that of a woman who marries a man she does not love. You are so precious to me, my beloved, that deeply as my heart is set on this, and bitter as the mere thought of disappointment is to me, I would not have you commit such a sin for any happiness of mine. If my happiness could be achieved by such an act, which it could not–which it never could,”\u00a0he repeated, earnestly–“nothing but misery can result from a marriage\u00a0dictated by any motive but truth and love.”<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this passage, Michael is in the process of proposing to Miss Lucy Graham\u00a0and his\u00a0use of\u00a0language caught my attention because he primarily\u00a0uses possessive pronouns that refer to himself.\u00a0He refers to his potential fianc\u00e9 only in terms in reference to his own person using phrases such\u00a0as \u201cyou are so precious to me\u201d (15) and \u201cmy beloved\u201d (15). Through his word\u00a0choice, the reader\u00a0is able to\u00a0receive an insight\u00a0into\u00a0Michael\u2019s character. By\u00a0doing\u00a0this, we see that his perspective of his and Lucy\u2019s relationship is centered on him alone.\u00a0That being said,\u00a0he\u00a0also puts all\u00a0responsibility\u00a0for\u00a0his own feelings into Lucy\u2019s hands\u00a0saying that if she does not truly love\u00a0him,\u00a0he will be unable\u00a0to \u201cachieve…happiness\u201d (15).\u00a0Michael sees marriage as something that purely affects\u00a0him but\u00a0is unfortunately in the hands of Lucy who as\u00a0all of\u00a0the power to hurt him.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He explains that he believes marriages made for any other reason than \u201ctruth and\u00a0love\u201d (15) were\u00a0destined to end sadness.\u00a0He\u00a0explicates\u00a0this concept with\u00a0several\u00a0references to the\u00a0hypothetical\u00a0\u201csin\u201d\u00a0of the situation.\u00a0Michael\u00a0uses \u201csin\u201d to describe the act of Lucy marrying him out greed, power, or any other motivation, rather than out of her love for him.\u00a0In doing this, he brings into\u00a0question his own religious beliefs and his willingness to push them upon Lucy\u00a0at\u00a0a moment of great importance. The images\u00a0brought about are ones of fire and damnation of hell\u00a0as a consequence of\u00a0Lucy\u2019s future actions. This religious motif is one that continues throughout the book\u00a0whether as a result of the cultural mindset of the period or\u00a0in an effort to\u00a0emphasize the sinful\u00a0behavior of the characters of the book, is so far unclear.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pg\u00a015, Paragraph 3\u00a0 “I scarcely think there\u00a0is a greater sin, Lucy,” he said, solemnly, “than that of a woman who marries a man she does not love. You are so precious to me, my beloved, that deeply as my heart is set on this, and bitter as the mere thought of disappointment is to me, … Continue reading Possession in Sin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}