Repression /// Emily Thullesen

 As the story of Bleak House progresses, the readers gain more insight to Lady Dedlock’s secret and how she handles the whole situation internally. The consequences of her past actions, that is bearing a child before she was married, finally emerge into the picture again after she had pushed away those thoughts for the remainder of her adult life. Even though she has a stable life with her husband, she is portrayed in a way that implies she lacks true happiness, always seeming to be silent. 

One can only imagine what Lady Dedlock’s true feelings were towards the situation. One thing is for sure, and that is she carried the incredible weight of repressing her emotions. Because she could not let her secret loose, she embodied this completely abstract version of herself. As another sinful human being who has dealt with guilt and bottling up my emotions, I can only imagine the burden of stress Lady Dedlock hid beneath the surface of her outside image. 

This scenario in Bleak House could not help but remind me of The Scarlet Letter, similar in the fact that both novels dealt with adultery and how shame can internally destroy a person. However, in The Scarlet Letter, Demmesdale was the character whose fate resulted from the burden of sin and shame rather than Hester. In any circumstance, hiding one’s emotions and guilt leads to downfall, proving that all actions have consequences and how Lady Dedlock will soon experience her own fate. 

I commented on Brooke Bradley and Emily Otts’ posts. 

Comments

  1. Haylee LyndNovember 8, 2021 at 9:32 PM

    It is really hard to imagine the pain that she must be going through and has gone through her whole life. I cannot imagine not being able to talk to someone about my greatest pain. I often bottle up my emotions, but there is generally at least one person I can talk to.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lily CaswellNovember 9, 2021 at 9:27 AM

    I love how you draw a comparison to The Scarlet Letter, which is one of my favorite books. And I too deal with bottling up my emotions, mainly because I just have a hard time expressing them.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A House Divided//Emily Otts

The words Jesus spoke in Matthew 12 remind me so much of this play: "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand." (Matthew 12:25) King Lear, at the end of the day, is about a family being divided multiple ways. These divisions arise over greed and hatred for one another and cause the whole family to be ruined because of it. King Lear first divides the kingdom after his daughter Cordelia does not proclaim her love to him, so he banishes her. Later, his daughters go against him for not doing as they asked, believing he is unfit and unworthy to be king, secretly plotting against him. But all of this comes to a head in Act 5. After capturing King Lear and Cordelia, Edmund plans to have them killed. You would believe the sisters would be able to work together because their plan is working, but an even greater division has risen between them. Both of them wish to have Edmund for themselves, and they plot against each o...
Read more

The Plague in Everyone// Emily Otts

     In part 4 of the Plague , Tarrou tells Rieux about how he has had the plague forever. Except, this is not the same plague as the one ravaging the town. Tarrou speaks of how his father was a lawyer who believed in the death penalty, how he saw so many people support it and be comfortable about it, and how he had to witness the executions of prisoners. He explains how this sort of mindset is a plague itself, one Tarrou had been fighting for a long time. " That's why everybody in the world looks so tired; everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is also why some of us, those who want to get the plague out of their systems, feel such desperate weariness, a weariness from which nothing remains to set us free except death" (Camus, part 4, chapter 6). Tarrou wants to desperately not submit to such awful ways of thinking.      Tarrou does not realize it, but the plague he is talking about is sin. Everyone has it, some people give in to it and let...
Read more

The Thirst for Knowledge

     With Book Seven of Milton's Paradise Lost, Raphael is continuing his exposition on Satan's apostasy. The plan is to expose Adam and Eve to the wretched fate of those who cross God's will. The more he shed's light on the subject, however, the more Adam is inclined to ask for more information. He wants to know everything about the subject, as well as God and His creation.      However, while the taste of such knowledge leaves Adam yearning for more, there are boundaries. It is like a toddler eating a cookie... and eventually begging her mother for the rest of the jar. Is it a coincidence that the one thing Adam and Eve are not to touch is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Most readers know how the story ends: these toddlers are never going to be content with a few cookies. They're going in for the jar.   There is a statement in the Bible that is constantly being repeated throughout the Old Testament: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of ...
Read more