**Warning! Spoilers, through chapter 25!**
Well, FINALLY. I was hoping for some crazy things to happen and my wish was granted. Not only does one crazy thing happen, a few do. First off, there might be a real ghost in the attic (or maybe Lucy's just insane). THEN Lucy goes to the theater with Dr. John/Graham and sees this great actress in some play, only to have the climax interrupted by a FIRE. And in the ensuing confusion and stampeding, Graham and Lucy witness a girl get thrown under the crowd. Graham, of course, saves her, and it turns out to be no one other than (surprise!) creepy little Polly, who is no longer little but still creepy.
Okay, so Polly's a little obsessive about her dad, and it weirds me out. I'm sensing some serious Electra complex going on here. Though she's also once again getting attached to Graham, who obviously likes her a great deal and they will probably end up a couple. (Sorry, Lucy.)
As for Lucy, she's got some issues to deal with. If that ghost isn't real, she's hallucinating, and it's not good. Plus she has this unhealthy obsession with Graham (lots of obsessing going on here). She's driving herself to some sort of edge, and if she's not careful she's gonna fly off it, sobbing her way all the way down.
Did anyone else think it was kind of on purpose that Lucy saw this spectre in the attic, like Bronte was giving a shout-out to Jane Eyre and that other madwoman in the attic? I thought that was interesting and too coincidental to be an accident.
Can we also talk about how COMPLETELY convenient it is that Lucy and Graham run into Polly and her father at the theater, almost literally? Well, Polly gets trampled sort of and Graham saves her sort of. It all seems way too contrived. This whole thing seems very contrived. "Oh, how odd that ALL OF US just HAPPEN to be in Villette at the same time! Oh, and you're cousins with Ginevra Fanshawe?! IMAGINE!" I mean, come on.
I'm guessing we'll be seeing a lot more of Polly in the next few chapters; you know she's going to end up at Villette so we can get the plot rolling along with some drama and whatever weird love trapezoid (pentagon?) will happen as a result.
Ah! I just left a comment and it erased it!
ReplyDeleteIn a nutshell...
Yes, Polly is majorly creepy (on all accounts in my opinion). Lucy needs to get over Graham -- he's annoying and not obsession worthy. And though I haven't read Jane Eyre (though I am intrigued) I am wondering if Lucy is going to go crazy? Or is crazy, actually, and we have been reading this story from a crazy woman's point of view. Is she going to go Alfred Hitchcock on us?
Oh my gosh that would be AWESOME. "And here I sit, in my asylum. Thank goodness for the companions of Memory and Regret!"
ReplyDeleteI till think that the ghost was that Ginevra-person playing a trick on Lucy. Didn't Lucy pass by her room before going into the attic?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Ginevra followed her there. She was probably also the origin of the light Lucy sees when she's getting her dress. Ginevra reading love letters, maybe?
I suspect Ginevra is somehow involved as the ghost too. It seems just like her somehow. Susan E
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense, but it's nowhere NEAR as exciting. :)
ReplyDeleteI find Polly to be a charming young lady. I think her obsession with her father is just a common thing in an era where young ladies didn't have a great deal of male role models to; she just dotes on him is all. At least that's what I think.
ReplyDeleteI like your ghostly analogy with the attic of Jane Eyre. Mouldering attics and apparitions I guess are part and parcel of the Gothic. Do you think that with Lucy being in the attic in the first place then the story is being told from a madwoman's perspective? It's a great idea - and it is certainly a book being written by a very troubled woman in her real life.