Chapter 6: Methodology [ Edited ]

[dhaupt]

---

Everyman wrote:
dhaupt wrote: I have just about convinced myself that Dr. Moyse is a psychiatrist by the little games he plays with Ginny.

But then what do you do with the information (pg. 16) that he cured a number of real diseases?

---

Well I did forget I read that thanks, now I have to rethink it. Or maybe he is a closet psychiatrist.

deb

Message Edited by dhaupt on 03-06-2008 09:54 AM

[detailmuse]

But pedophilia would be such a literary cliche, I'll be disappointed if it isn't something more unusual ... along the lines of experimental treatment. I give some possibility to the "card games" being a series of Rorscach inkblots.

---

lmpmn wrote:

For the 1st time in the story, I'm suspicious of Dr. Moyse. I'm eager to hear more about why she had dreams about him.  However, she does say that when she was with the doctor, Maud would bring her biscuits and look over their shoulders.  I suspect Maud wouldn't have ever let anyone harm Ginny or Vivi.

---

[detailmuse]

(moved to Ch. 7 thread)

Message Edited by detailmuse on 03-06-2008 10:09 AM

[serialmahogany]

---

kiakar wrote:

---

carriele wrote:

---

Everyman wrote:

---

carriele wrote:
I thought Vivi reacted to the bed in a state of confusion. Ginny has gotten rid of most of the belongings in the house and yet kept Clive and Maud's bed. She states she kept it because it is so comfortable. But is that the true reason? Also, why did Ginny stay in her parents room of the house as an adult?

---

And is there any relationship between her sleeping in her father's bed and her wearing her father's cardy? Is there something suggestive here?

---

I have had similar thoughts about the relationship between Ginny and Clive.  Maybe this could could explain why Vivi reacted to the bed the way she did?

---

He would never have had time to do that crime, I do not believe. It didnt concern his experiments.

---

I agree, I dont believe that Clive would have done this.  I believe that she kept it because it gave her a sense of her parents still being there, in a way that subsituted her dead parents presence so that she could stay sane.  I saw it as if when she laid in the bed, she was lying between the comofort of her two parents.  I think that because the smothered her so much, she can not act or live without the thought of the smothering.

As for the staying in the actual bedroom, I think that it is customary in those days when you own a masion or large house that the master of the house take the master bedroom.  So since she was the only one there, she was the master of the house.

[Everyman]

---

blkeyesuzi wrote:
Here's a fun hypothesis:

What if Dr. Moyse visits because he's actually Ginny's real father? He plays games with her and he tries to get to know her. But the family keeps it a secret from Ginny....Clive goes along with it and that's why Maude says she thought they could be a normal family.

Shot in the dark......Long shot ;-)

---

A long shot, perhaps, but very a very interesting one! time (of course as measured by one of Ginny's clocks or watches!) will tell.

[Everyman]

---

Oldesq wrote:

---

Everyman wrote:
Several people have commented about how strange it is that she has no curtains in her bedroom.

I don't find it that strange. She's out in the country, on the (to us) second floor, so what's the need for privacy? I suspect that probably there were old curtains there which had finally rotted away, and she never had the gumption to replace them.

---

I would agree with you except that Vivi found it strange enough to comment on and Ginny (finally!) got that it was a joke suggesting that there was something strange about the arrangement. Also, disposal of the curtains doesn't match up with the supposed rationale that she sold items as her pension.

My first mental picture of this room was that it was just very sparsely furnished but then we learn that 5 or so panes are missing from the window, the wallpaper is peeling off in great hunks, damp and water marks are taking over and "avalanches of plaster" have come away from the walls. It must literally look like a ruin but I can't wrap my head around the image. I think part of the blame is the writing and part is the intended unreliability of the narrator.

I wonder why the only piece of furniture Ginny consciously kept is an old nursing chair- hits on a theme of children again in that she uses this symbol of feeding new life as a stopping point to the bathroom when she can't "make it all in one go." But it is turned toward the wall- a position no nursing mother would use- foreclosing the possibility of new life in this house.

I did enjoy the language describing the now absent chandelier "raining shafts of providence" and "showing its mastery of the laws of refraction."

Is Ginny striving to become pupal soup where she deconstructs the world around her to its most base elements, cocoons herself in the cardigan and bed to enter some other plane of existence?

Like many others I am still trying to work out the card games with Dr. Moyse- why was Vivi not allowed to even watch- although it suggests the Dr. is a pedophile- that doesn't seem right as Maud approves of these games and even ruffles Ginny's hair when she plays them- but can we trust Ginny's memory?

I hope we learn what took the gleam out of Vivi's eyes- why "life hurt her too much" (p. 70) and why she is "infecting the house." (p. 73).

Oldesq

Message Edited by Oldesq on 03-06-2008 08:12 AM

---

You make a couple of really nice points here. I'm not sure I agree with you on the curtains, though I'm not sure at this point, but I like your comments on the nursing chair and Ginny.

[Laurel]

Cataracts?

---

psujulie wrote:

I also thought that Ginny's comments about her Vivien's eyes were very telling. On page 70, she says " It is her eyes that are the most changed. Once they were a strong bright blue, scattered with natural shards of silver that made them sparkle as bright and vivacious and hypnotic as the girl herself. But now they're faded to a weak gray-blue, dulled by the life they've seen." I

---

[Laurel]

Here is a thought:

Cards are used to test for so-called extra-sensory perception. Related to ESP is psycho-kinetic ability, the supposed ability to move things without physical contact, such as the ability to push someone from afar.

Zener ESP cards

More

[umlaut]

---

Everyman wrote:
Several people have commented about how strange it is that she has no curtains in her bedroom.

I don't find it that strange. She's out in the country, on the (to us) second floor, so what's the need for privacy? I suspect that probably there were old curtains there which had finally rotted away, and she never had the gumption to replace them.

---

He way i see it, she has pretty much gotten ride of all things in the house, as if she doesn't want to be reminded to any "old" memories, and her compulsive behavior in doing things. I believe getting ride of the curtains is just another *object* she is getting ride off from her life so she doesn't want to and have to deal with it. Things are not looking too good for Ginny as we can see and her sister "Vivien" is like a ripple in a pond; upsetting the equilibrium.

Also i want to know why she (Ginny) keeps mentioning her parents by their first names? its almost suggesting they are some strange people she deals with...very strange... any take on this?

[ELee]

---

Laurel wrote:
Here is a thought:

Cards are used to test for so-called extra-sensory perception. Related to ESP is psycho-kinetic ability, the supposed ability to move things without physical contact, such as the ability to push someone from afar.

Zener ESP cards

More

---

There is also a Tasks of Emotional Development (T.E.D.) test.  Scroll down to the chart for a description.  Below it is an explanation of how they are scored.

[dordavis33]

The strange issue of Dr. Moyse is developed a little bit further – first we learn more about his visits, during which he played games with Ginny (the simplicity of which probably hide their deeper purpose from her), and then Vivi makes reference to some recurring and "peculiar" dreams that Ginny has about Dr. Moyse (p. 67). This statement could support suspicions that Dr. Moyse engaged in inappropriate behavior, but I think Vivi's comment points more to her knowing something about Ginny that Ginny herself does not know. What do you think?

I am thinking that Dr. Moyse is a psychiatrist myself. When Ginny recounts that this was a game played by her and the doctor and Vivi was not allowed to participate, I immediately think about the Rorschach inkblot tests. a simple card game, right?? it would just seem too simple if there is actually nothing going on here but your everyday dysfunctional family life. It would appear that there is an undercurrent of something more foreboding or it could be that literature class I recently finished up. The professor always encouraged us to go deeper than the text :-) But I do believe there is more than meets the eyes on this family unit and the sisters' relationship.

[Laurel]

Good find! That sounds more logical.

---

ELee wrote:

---

Laurel wrote:
Here is a thought:

Cards are used to test for so-called extra-sensory perception. Related to ESP is psycho-kinetic ability, the supposed ability to move things without physical contact, such as the ability to push someone from afar.

Zener ESP cards

More

---

There is also a Tasks of Emotional Development (T.E.D.) test. Scroll down to the chart for a description. Below it is an explanation of how they are scored.

---

[Oldesq]

Gee, I hope the plot, the character's motivations and the characters themselves live up to all this build up.  Some times a cigar is just a cigar.

[pigwidgeon]

I love the passage about the Virginia creeper in it's "eerie silhouette, pointing at me with young, fresh attitude. It's exhausting having to watch them, all curled up like a chameleon's tongue, ready to unfurl and pounce towards the next foothold in their spring invasion of my room."(pg. 62) Vine-y plants are so tenacious!

When Ginny says "Sometimes, more often in winter, I'll stay in bed all day, quite happy thinking my thoughts, undisturbed and unnoticed."(63) I think "That sounds like vacation." Give me cocoa and a book too, oh yes.....

[maryfrancesa]

I was thinking about Vivi and Ginny.  Once Vivi returns she tours the house without Ginny.  No one would appreciate it if the visitors just went through their house without them,  After all Vivi has been gone for 50 yrs, so its it still half hers'  She left and never came back to stay.  Also Vivi must know about Ginny's OCD

they were sisters so why would she just waltz into Ginny's bed room. and make herself at home.  The firat night they had not been very close.

[pigwidgeon]

Are we convinced that Ginny ever REALLY played card games with Dr. Moyse? Even when she recalls it first, earlier in the chapter, before her conversation with Vivi, I don't think it is sure to Ginny herself. Ginny remembers on page 60, "My childhood, my family, school, and then there are the games I've just remembered I used to play with Dr. Moyse, card games he'd made up himself. I can't tell you if it was real or something I'd dreamed but I remember how the memories of it plagued me." Then later during the conversation with Vivi we find that Vivi, at least, doesn't remember her sister playing the card games, at most, has no knowledge of them.

"...But then I remembered playing card games with Dr. Moyse."
"Card Games?"
"Yes, where me and Dr. Moyse are-" but Vivien interrupts, "Goodness me!" she exclaims. "You're not still having those peculiar dreams about Dr. Moyse, are you?" (pg. 65)

This pretty much seals the deal for me. I think that, it is possible that something untoward went on between Dr. Moyse and Ginny, but that the card games were merely a dream. If something had happened, Ginny, at her young age, may have translated it into strange card games in her dreams. Ginny previously says that Vivi wasn't even allowed to watch, which to me implies that Vivi wanted to watch, or was interested in the games/ Ginny and Dr. Moyse's meetings. She probably would have remembered the card game meetings and would not have had such a reaction like "Card Games?" I am surely interested to see where this line of thought goes. There must be more to come concerning Dr. Moyse....

[Everyman]

Sorry, but no. The TED test wasn't published, according to that site at least, until 1971, long after the Moyse card games were being played. And even if a country doctor in England managed to get pre-publication copies of them, the work on the test didn't start until 1958, again too late for this purpose

---

Laurel wrote:
Good find! That sounds more logical.

---

ELee wrote:

---

Laurel wrote:
Here is a thought:

Cards are used to test for so-called extra-sensory perception. Related to ESP is psycho-kinetic ability, the supposed ability to move things without physical contact, such as the ability to push someone from afar.

Zener ESP cards

More

---

There is also a Tasks of Emotional Development (T.E.D.) test. Scroll down to the chart for a description. Below it is an explanation of how they are scored.

---

---

[Everyman]

---

Oldesq wrote:

Gee, I hope the plot, the character's motivations and the characters themselves live up to all this build up. Some times a cigar is just a cigar.

---

[ELee]

---

Everyman wrote:
Sorry, but no. The TED test wasn't published, according to that site at least, until 1971, long after the Moyse card games were being played. And even if a country doctor in England managed to get pre-publication copies of them, the work on the test didn't start until 1958, again too late for this purpose

---

Laurel wrote:
Good find! That sounds more logical.

---

ELee wrote:

---

Laurel wrote:
Here is a thought:

Cards are used to test for so-called extra-sensory perception. Related to ESP is psycho-kinetic ability, the supposed ability to move things without physical contact, such as the ability to push someone from afar.

Zener ESP cards

More

---

There is also a Tasks of Emotional Development (T.E.D.) test. Scroll down to the chart for a description. Below it is an explanation of how they are scored.

---

---

---

I posted the TED test merely as an idea, not to imply that they were the actual cards.  Perhaps Dr. Moyse had some psychological or psychiatric aspirations - we don't know - in any event the card games were "made up by himself".  So they could be anything. 

[dewgirl]

pigwidgeon wrote:
Are we convinced that Ginny ever REALLY played card games with Dr. Moyse? Even when she recalls it first, earlier in the chapter, before her conversation with Vivi, I don't think it is sure to Ginny herself. Ginny remembers on page 60, "My childhood, my family, school, and then there are the games I've just remembered I used to play with Dr. Moyse, card games he'd made up himself. I can't tell you if it was real or something I'd dreamed but I remember how the memories of it plagued me." Then later during the conversation with Vivi we find that Vivi, at least, doesn't remember her sister playing the card games, at most, has no knowledge of them.

"...But then I remembered playing card games with Dr. Moyse."
"Card Games?"
"Yes, where me and Dr. Moyse are-" but Vivien interrupts, "Goodness me!" she exclaims. "You're not still having those peculiar dreams about Dr. Moyse, are you?" (pg. 65)

This pretty much seals the deal for me. I think that, it is possible that something untoward went on between Dr. Moyse and Ginny, but that the card games were merely a dream. If something had happened, Ginny, at her young age, may have translated it into strange card games in her dreams. Ginny previously says that Vivi wasn't even allowed to watch, which to me implies that Vivi wanted to watch, or was interested in the games/ Ginny and Dr. Moyse's meetings. She probably would have remembered the card game meetings and would not have had such a reaction like "Card Games?" I am surely interested to see where this line of thought goes. There must be more to come concerning Dr. Moyse....

---

Oooh, interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. I had forgotten about that. I like your theory that the card games were just dreams.