The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
This topic is about
No Name
No Name
>
No Name - Week 5
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
Since no settlement was discussed, is the plan to have Noel mysteriously die and everything be left to Magdalen? But as you pointed out, there are 200 more pages. Collins does often have surprising plot twists. I can see how this could have been a huge hit as serialized story.
This section was all Wragge and Lecount, with very little Magdalen. It felt to me like she was becoming a pawn in the hands of the two arch schemers, almost losing her grasp on the meaning of her quest.The fact that Magdalen hates what she is doing shows how mentally scarred she has already become. Her obsessive quest to regain her inheritance is, like the relentless seas crashing against the crumbling cliffs, destroying her life. If she succeeds in marrying Noel, her misery will increase tenfold and Wragge has determined to walk away at that point. She will be at the mercy of Lecount and her desperate circumstances could lead to even more dangerous situations.
Wragge’s lack of care for Magdalen appals me. He occasionally shows some remorse, but he knows that the whole operation is destroying the girl and yet he continues the quest with all the skill and audacity if a man who has spent many years cruelly swindling and ruining people’s lives. To utilise his intelligence and skills in order to inflict misery on innocent people is an absolute disgrace.
Dunwich might have provided a powerful metaphor for Wilkie Collins because of the way the city/town/village was crumbling into the sea during the nineteenth century. So much had been lost from the thriving city port it had once been. Today there is very little left to see, but 150 years ago the scene would have been different.
At the time Wilkie Collins would have visited the remains of the church would have been there, as well as parts of other buildings strewn along the beach.
Here is an article about the destruction of Dunwich, part of which describes how writers and artists were attracted to Dunwich in the nineteenth century.
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/...
Mod
I do love the descriptions of Dunwich.
Mod
Mod
Yeah, that's a really... interesting thing to say about nature.
Trev, thanks for the link. I’d never heard of this city before and I’m going to enjoy reading about it. Not too far from where I live in the outer suburbs of Washington, DC, a few hours South lies the barrier islands off the coast of NC called the Outer Banks. Many homes were built close to the shore and when the first one fell into the ocean it was big news. Now several have and no doubt more will. I suspect most of them were built before the predictions of rising tides due to climate change were made.
I didn’t meant I stray off topic, but it is a good analogy of how something so lovely can become so destructive.
Ok be honest, is there any part of you that is secretly rooting for Magdalen to be successful, for Noel to pass away and she gets the fortune by inheritance?
Mod
Absolutely, and although she is unscrupulous, she doesn’t become the “fallen woman” I expected.
Mod
Magdalen has only fought for what has been morally ‘stolen’ from her and her sister. She has been bold and shown great ingenuity. I am definitely wanting her to succeed. However, the bad things for me have been her involvement with the criminal Captain Wragge and feeling obliged to marry Noel thinking that it was the only way to get the inheritance back.
Has your opinion of Wragge changed at all?
What did you think of the "game" played between Wragge and Lecount? Since she has positively discovered Magdalen's identity, do he and Magdalen have any moves left?
This seemed like a climactic chapter, but we still have around 200 pages left. What are your predictions? Take into account your experiences with Collins' other books, if you have read them.