<\/p>\n
Passage: \u201cWhy, I have seen her under my wretched canvas tent, sitting by my side, with her boy in her arms, as plainly as I had ever seen her in the one happy year of our wedded life\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>(26)<\/p>\n George\u2019s description of his and Helen\u2019s son as \u201cher boy\u201d instead of as \u201cour boy\u201d (26) suggests that he has trouble connecting with his son, and doesn\u2019t claim him as his own. Braddon could also be hinting that the child is not George\u2019s, but the product of an affair \u2014 which would align with the typical drama of sensation novels. The use of \u201cher\u201d instead of \u201cour\u201d also speaks to the role of women in the Victorian era. Due to separate spheres ideology and patriarchal values, George likely views his son as Helen\u2019s responsibility, since child-rearing was a traditionally female role. I noticed that in ch. 7-13, after Helen\u2019s death, George refers to his son as his own, which suggests a shift in character based either on his perceptions of Georgey or an assumption of responsibility that was only appropriate (based on gender roles) after his wife\u2019s passing. George\u2019s emphasis on their \u201cone happy year\u201d (26) is also significant, as it foreshadows that Helen\u2019s death would prevent the couple from experiencing beyond that year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The visions George mentions occurred while Helen was in England and he was in Australia. This might be a stretch, but I have a theory that Lucy is actually Helen, and that Helen never really died. If true, this passage might pave the way for a reunion between George and Helen\/Lucy in which George\u2019s apparent sighting of her could be reduced to a mere vision, akin to the kind he had while in Australia. In essence, this passage foreshadows the end of Helen and George\u2019s marriage as well as a poor relationship between George and his son. This foreshadowing is coupled with a nod to historical notions of patriarchy and an early prediction about Lucy\u2019s identity and how that may emerge within the context of the Talboys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Passage: \u201cWhy, I have seen her under my wretched canvas tent, sitting by my side, with her boy in her arms, as plainly as I had ever seen her in the one happy year of our wedded life\u201d\u00a0 (26) George\u2019s description of his and Helen\u2019s son as \u201cher boy\u201d instead of as \u201cour boy\u201d … Continue reading Pronouns, Patriarchy, and Predictions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4765,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1605","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\/1605","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\/4765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}