{"id":2129,"date":"2025-02-22T05:43:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T05:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=2129"},"modified":"2025-02-22T05:43:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T05:43:38","slug":"mrs-cathericks-motivations-parenthood-and-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2025\/02\/22\/mrs-cathericks-motivations-parenthood-and-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Mrs. Catherick’s Motivations: Parenthood and Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI had taken Anne to the north with me; having my whims and fancies, occasionally, about my child, and getting, at times, jealous of Mrs. Clements\u2019s influence over her. I never liked Mrs. Clements\u2026and I was, now and then, not averse to plaguing her by taking Anne away. Not knowing what else to do with my girl… I put her to school in Limmerridge. The Lady of the manor, Mrs. Fairlie\u2026 amused me wonderfully, by taking a violent fancy to my girl. The consequence was, she learnt nothing at school, and was petted and spoilt at Limmeridge House. \u2026They put some nonsense into her head about always wearing white. Hating white and liking colors myself, I was determined to take that nonsense out of her head as soon as we got home again.\u201d (Collins 535)<\/span><\/p>\n

This passage from Mrs. Catherick\u2019s letter to Walter emphasizes the unequal and superficial nature of her relationship with Anne as well as establishing the self interest that drives her character. This is presented through the excessive use of commas and denigrating terms that she uses to describe other\u2019s affection for Anne.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, the excessive use of commas in the first sentence of the passage disrupt the sentence\u2019s flow and implies that for Mrs. Catherick, admitting jealousy over someone she dislikes and considers beneath her, deeply hurts her pride to admit. The pauses of the commas in turn are read as empathic pauses or slow and careful formulation of thoughts. Both imply a truth that she is not willing to admit. In contrast, if the admittance of jealousy had a continuous uninterrupted flow, it would signify it as a comfortable truth that has no underlying negative association through how easy and smooth the formulation of phrasing for the sentence would be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mrs. Catherick continues the depiction of her lack of affection for Anne by describing Mrs. Farlie\u2019s affection and care for her as \u201cviolent fancy\u201d. This phrase undermines and downplays the sincerity and depth of their connection through \u201cviolent\u201d and \u201cfancy\u201d\u2019s shared association with a sense of uncontrolled irrational judgement. Through this, she implies affection for her daughter as irrational. She cannot understand why Mrs. Fairlie would hold such affection for Anne and is only interested in maintaining and having \u201cinfluence\u201d over her daughter. In fact, she blames Mrs. Fairlie for causing Anne\u2019s \u201chorrible\u201d attachment to only wearing white. She dismisses something that brings Anne comfort for her own preference for colors and indicates through this that she is not interested in knowing Anne, but rather in controlling her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lastly, Mrs. Catherick\u2019s negative portrayal of the pseudo maternal figures\u2019s care indicates that she views her daughter as beneath her, similar to the way that she would view an animal or a pet. Her pointed use of \u201cpetted and spoilt\u201d to describe Anne\u2019s treatment at Limmeridge along with her attempts to control the focus of Anne\u2019s affections and the way she dresses is reminiscent of the way that one would talk about and treat a pet. Specifically, petted is a term that one would very rarely use to describe another human being as the action can be a demeaning way of showing affection for an equal. While wanting control over the education and treatment of her daughter can fit into expectations of parenthood, the desire for control over appearance and affection, along with the usage of \u201cpetted\u201d indicates that her interest is on a more superficial level. The jealousy she feels isn\u2019t due to desire for familial love but rather stems from her desire for control, respect and attention. The repeated use of \u201cMy girl\u201d and \u201cmy child\u201d also supports this claim through the emphasis on possession and control created by repetition of the phrases. She claims possession in response to the care of Mrs. Fairlie and Mrs. Clements, and uses it as a reminder of her parental control over Anne.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Through sentence flow, usage of phrasing that diminishes Anne and implies affection for her daughter as irrational, Mrs. Catherick repeatedly emphasizes that her only concern is her power and influence. This understanding of character shows how the intensity of her commitment to reputation drive her actions and character in the plot and brings her to callously disregard the harm caused to others . <\/span><\/p>\n



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

\u201cI had taken Anne to the north with me; having my whims and fancies, occasionally, about my child, and getting, at times, jealous of Mrs. Clements\u2019s influence over her. I never liked Mrs. Clements\u2026and I was, now and then, not averse to plaguing her by taking Anne away. Not knowing what else to do with … Continue reading Mrs. Catherick’s Motivations: Parenthood and Power<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5026,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135984],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}