Posted by Terence McManus on February 28, 2002 at 06:53:50 from 202.108.48.20:
The thread on Nancy sparked off a couple of trains of thought.
Firstly I can't recall any instances of church going in the S&W series. Not even when the GA came to stay. I believe that going to church at least once each Sunday would have been the norm for a middle class family in the 1930s and yet this is never mentioned as an example of the GA's tyranny.
Is the ommision a reflection of AR's own prejudices (was he a church goer?)? Or is church going something so taken for granted that (like jakes) he sees no need to refer to it.
Secondly the GA is often regarded as one of the few people with no redeaming features in the series. Much as there are friends of George O (I can't remember the correct spelling) I propose that there should be a GA appreciation society.
Consider the following... I suggest her demands on Ruth and Margaret are right and for their own good. There is no malice in what she asks, she does not intend to make them suffer for her pleasure. She has given up her own pleasures for what she sees as her duty. In her prime she took on the task of bringing up Molly and Jim Turner. Perhaps that was why she never married? In P&M she leaves Harrogate where she is comfortable and has her social circle to look after her ungrateful great nieces. At the end of P&M she seems to me to be a slightly pathetic figure (and to Nancy as well since she steps in to save face for the GA).
Her biggest fault, a very common human failing, is her inability to put herself in another's place and understand their point of view.
Does anybody else think that AR intended her to be a semi sympathetic character?