Saturday, March 17, 2012
Who is the Moral Center?
Although Adeline was her novel's heroine, it seems clear that Opie uses her as a moral lesson of what not to do rather than what to do. She notes that mothers can be either an example of the virtuous life to be lived for their daughters, or an example of what they should abhor in lives of vice. Thus while Adeline serves as this anti-example of what not to do, Opie uses others to explain what is right. Though she is often over zealous in her love for Adeline, Savanna does consistently stick up for her mistress in those instances where, perhaps, Adeline should have been more proactive. When Barrendale has an "intrigue" with one of the servingwomen, Savanna does not shy away from indignance at his behavior. Whether her anger is right or not, through her defamation of wrong, what is right is illuminated. Mrs. Pemberton also points to virtue throughout the novel. She extends grace to Adeline by coming to her aid in her greatest times of need, after the death of Glenmurray and in Adeline's last days. It is interesting that Opie uses these two characters as moral guides. While one is a mulatto servant, the other a gentlewoman turned Quaker. Neither of these positions in life would have been mainstream during this time period. However, both women would have had to undergo many social pressures and tribulations--Savanna as an escaped slave, and Mrs. Pemberton marrying a man of a different religious practice. Perhaps these women, having gone through experiences and pressures of their own, were more capable to identify and illuminate virtue. I wonder: had Adeline lived longer, could she have pointed to virtue like these women, or were her youthful errors just too grave?
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I, too, had difficulty figuring out who women reading this book were supposed to emulate. Maybe Opie is deliberately making the point that just because some women are on the fringe of society (Savanna, Mrs. Pemberton) does not exclude them from being moral people? At the end of this novel I was confused as to what moral lesson to take from it. I also wondered how Adeline could have possibly become virtuous, had she lived.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with this idea that Savanna and Mrs. Pemberton are set in the novel to show readers that moral charatcers do exist to set an example, even women who also struggle against societal norms. I am uncertain how Adeline could have become virtuous, yet it seemed in her final moments she believed this to be possible. In one of her letters she describes that if she lives she will serve as a dangerous example to her daughter as she would be "respected and esteemed...while the society around me would forget my past errors, in the sincerity of my repentance." I wonder if she had lived if society would have ever completely forgotten her past errors, and what impact this may have had on her daughter.
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