So in an era of writing, where by and large, the good guys are sent through hell but get a happy ending (Esther), and the bad guys are usually just sent to hell (Tulkinghorn), My Lady Dedlock dies painfully and alone in a cemetery (convenient, I suppose). Her mean-spiritedness aside, she was not a villain in the story, yet it seems she was given one of the saddest endings in the book.
Among the graves of the departed, this cemetery is for the dishonored, the unidentified and the poor, and it is here where Esther eventually comes upon the body of her mother. She had gone to this cemetery in the hopes of finding the grave of Nemo/Hawdon, arguably the only man she truly loved.
While it was appropriate for Nemo to be buried in such a place, having Lady Dedlock die in this cemetery has more layers to it than we think. Granted, it has a certain melodramatic flare to it, dying alongside her former lover, something that is spookily romantic, and not surprising in Victorian era writing. But dying in this cemetery for the dishonored and the poor, she dies not as Lady Dedlock but as Honoria, her true self; her secrets laid bare—the affair with Nemo, the child out of wedlock. She isn't the haughty, phlorizin and self-centered woman whose regal demeanor and money kept her in the richest of circles. She is the fallen woman, dying among the wretched and the poor.
Lady Dedlock died alone believing her world to be over. She believed she was hunted for a murder she did not commit, believed Sir Leicester hated her for her secrets, for what they would do to the Dedlock name. She died horribly, and the ending wasn't happy. However, the reader is cued in on some other truths. Sir Leicester's love for her was so great he felt sorry for her. He didn't care about the Dedlock family legacy, and had forgiven her totally for her past—he loved her more than he could have expressed to her. My Lady died in pursuit of her first love, and when she was found, the first hands upon her was Esther, her daughter. So in that way, her death was perhaps more bittersweet. When she died, people mourned her, unlike Tulkinghorn whose death was probably met with a ticker-tape parade. Lady Dedlock died surrounded by the love of other people.
In that way, Dickens gave her--a flawed woman--a bittersweet end. It was sad, but she was allowed to die the woman she actually was, not the woman she pretended to be. In that way, it was a happy ending.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
For a guy who advocated a new start for the fallen women he really messed up with Lady Dedlock. In the ‘Appeal to fallen women’ he told the women to go learn how to be a wife, leave their old lives behind and it would be like the past didn’t even exist. LD’s life didn’t disappear, it caught up with her and she died not as her new and improved self (a Lady) but as the pre-change self, as Honoria. Why would Dickens say one thing in the letter (The appeal to fallen women) and then write a book where the advice he gave to those women did not help.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t see anything sweet in her death. I was still routing for her and Esther to reconnect. If she just trusted the love of Sir L. Dedlock, maybe the ending would have turned out differently. She cared too much about what the society would say about her past and its impact on Sir Dedlock. Considering he married her for love instead of the way the rich got married at that time she should have trusted him with the secret. He didn’t care about what the society might think when he married her and as we saw he didn’t care about the society’s perception when he learned her secret. All he cared about was her and how much he loved her.
It seems that Lady Deadlock did die the way she truely was as Edward has stated. She was not born with wealth and she died in a cemetery that was the place where people who were known as no bodies were laid to rest. Although Lady Deadlock died alone she seem to still be with the person that she really loves in spirit. It seems ironic that it was Esther who first finds her mother dead because Lady Deadlock told her that they must never meet or talk again and the last time she sees her mother she has died. I wonder how Esther feels about the situation because she never really admits her true feelings so I'm wondering if she feels mad, sad, hurt or anything of that kind.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is in fact a happy ending though it is mournful. In a way the three of them were fially unified as a family even though it was in an unhappy way. It was more of a truthful ending, I guess. Lady Deadlock's secrets at this point are revealled and Esther is with her true parents.
ReplyDeleteNovember 30, 2009 11:01 AM
It was meant for her to die where her first love was buried, her first love knows who she in the inside, Sir Deadlock does not know her at all. Although, he truly loves her and forgive her, he does not know her at all. he only knew that person that Lady Deadlock pretended to be. Its beautiful that she dies at her lover side and her daughter Esther was the one to find her. It shows for once that the family can be together. This was a bittersweet end for Lady Deadlock because she did not have to hide from the society who she really was. Lady Deadlock came out of her shell.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Edward, for a lovely blog post. You do a great job, as do the commentors, of pointing out what a mixed ending (for Lady D) this is and how it challenges some of the ideas that Dickens's seems to champion elsewhere (second chances, the power of love to overcome social barriers, the power of maternal love). Vonyke raises another good question about what Esther feels and why she doesn't tell us. How does that make sense in terms of her character? Does it make her more like Lady D?
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested in hearing tomorrow in class about your impressions of Esther on her ride with Bucket and what Dickens was trying to do there.
I agree that the ending gave me mixed emotions. On one hand it was depressing, and on another it was bittersweet. The family was truly united though, something that could never have happened when they were all living.
ReplyDeleteVery good post, and I agree. It was interesting to watch LD walk around, with so much class, just so that she could be pulled under by everything rotten and wicked in the world when she died in the cemetary. It seemed that LD was granted the peace that she desired while she was still awake, and the only time she could be happy was when she replayed scenes from her memories and relived them. I saw this ending coming for her though, she was too enveloped in her past, overtaken by the six degrees of her innter turbulence, leaving herself to fall into infinity.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Dave. The systematic chaos of her life led her to this moment. She needed a change of season.
ReplyDeleteI think I agree with Dave on seeing it coming, however much I didn't want to. She would never be happy in life with what she has now, despite the fact that Sir Leceister was a good man to her. Forgive the cliche but she had too many memories plaguing her life and made so much of her time trying to forget who she was and hide it that she had created a stigma with her identity in general.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Ilona that this doesn't make sense in light of Dickens's appeal to women but perhaps he's trying to illustrate that since she couldn't fully adjust to her new life, and get away from her past, her new identity didn't do anything to solve her problems like it would for the other women who'd go to this shelter.
Maybe the only way to move on into better things is to literally move on. LD was away from Chancery for awhile until the beginning of the story, so maybe that is part of the reason her memories were haunting her so much. She knew that her past could literally catch up to her.
I said literally way too much in one sentence.
Lady Deadloock choose this as her burial ground because she was a "fallen woman," she did not know her place since she was conflicted between to alternate realities, her present and her past. Therefore she had become so lost that she felt she had no where else to go. She was a living ghost hoovering over her former loved ones.-IM Just SAyin!!
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that from reading about Dickens societal reform of women and through Lady Dedlock's character, Dickens wants fallen women to avoid dealing with shameful treatment from society. The fallen women of Urania Cottage are sent abroad so they will not have to encounter social stigma in England. In the same way, Lady Dedlock dies almost as soon as her secret is revealed, basically avoiding any repercussions she may face for her actions.
ReplyDeleteWell, I will go back to my previous point and say that Lady Dedlock died very selfishly. But, it is no surprise. When she told Esther she is her mother, she told her that she must walk the dark road alone. She did not even give Esther the choice to be with her. And now, she does not give Sir Leister the choice to be with her because she goes off and dies. The last word in Ld's letter was "forgive." However, she does not forgive herself, or even give the chance for anyone else to forgive her. I guess Dickens is playing on her extreme emotions again, and just like her sister, LD dies with a famous word in a novel about social change.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post Ed! I was sad she died, and the way she died, next to her lover, reminded me of Bollywood movies. The message Dickens is giving readers is that no matter what, a fallen women will always vanish from the society where she is a disgrace. Although I thought she was being selfish at first, later I understood that she was sad with her life and could no longer bear to live in the life she was living. To me, her ending was actually happy because now she will get to reunite with her lover, in heaven.
ReplyDeleteIt would spoil the story no doubt but Honoria should've told Sir Leicester about Esther, leaving Mrs Chadband, Smallweed & Tulkinghorn to writhe in the toils of thwarted malice.
ReplyDelete