Do you like Lucy?

[ConnieAnnKirk]

Do you like Lucy Snowe?  Why or why not?

[dulcinea3]

I have to admit that I don't much like Lucy.  A bit regrettable, if she's supposedly based on Charlotte Bronte herself.

I find her to be cold and distant to most people.  Even people she cares about, like Graham and Mrs. Bretton.  When she encounters them again later in life, she doesn't even tell them who she is until Mrs. Bretton figures it out.  Towards the end of the novel there is a scene in the park where she is sitting directly behind them, and they are speaking favorably of her, and she considers revealing that she is there, and then ends up leaving, instead.  There are times when she should speak to M. Paul, or look for him or someone else, and she knows it will be to her detriment and/or theirs if she does not, and she does nothing instead.  She seems to like having friends, but she will do almost nothing to keep the friendship; it has to be on the others' shoulders to maintain it.

"Left alone, I was passive; repulsed, I withdrew; forgotten--my
lips would not utter, nor my eyes dart a reminder."

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"I knew where he lived: I knew where he was to be heard of, or
communicated with; the distance was scarce a stone's-throw: had it
been in the next room--unsummoned, I could make no use of my
knowledge. To follow, to seek out, to remind, to recall--for these
things I had no faculty.

"M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm: had he passed
silent and unnoticing, silent and stirless should I have suffered him
to go by."

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"She knew my weakness
and deficiency; she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis--the
total default of self-assertion--with which, in a crisis, I could be
struck."

She's also overly preachy on a philosophical and religious level, and indulges in some very boring moral reveries.  There is very little enjoyment of life there, and I think it is mostly her own fault.  She may have had some setbacks in life, but she refuses to try to overcome them.  She is often depressed, and sometimes almost suicidal.

Message Edited by dulcinea3 on 04-18-2008 11:08 AM

[jhowell]

I am on the fence with liking Lucy -- but so far (midway thru Volume 3) -- my verdict is I do like her.  She is flawed, no doubt -- secretive, self-negating, judgemental, prone to melancholia -- but I think she is a strong, independent woman and I most admire her stoicism.  Being a native New Englander, I am naturally disinclined to favor people/characters who outwardly emote and draw attention to themselves.  No matter her degree of internal strife, she plods along, never burdening others with her problems.

She has demonstrated kindness -- to Ginevra, to Paulina-- as a child and as a young woman, and of course M. Paul's watchguard.  Although she did make him grovel for it, he rather deserved it.  I think she is a very real character i.e. not entirely admirable or despicable.