The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
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Sylvia's Lovers
Elizabeth Gaskell Collection
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Sylvia’s Lover - Chapters 29 thru 35 - Week 5
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Philip becomes jealous of the child and of the friendship between Hester and Sylvia. Sylvia suffers from a fever after childbirth. Sylvia believes the marriage is a mistake.
Kinraid reappears and Sylvia learns of Philip’s deceit. Philip leaves home, is recruit to the navy, and changes his name. Nobody knows the location of Philip. Bell dies.
1. What do you think of Hester?
2. What is your opinion on Sylvia’s decision to disconnect (at least emotionally) from Philip and yet stay faithful due to her marriage vows?
3. Is there a pattern of death and resurrection?
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1. Hester can be judgmental at times, but if she wasn't, her character would be too perfect, so Gaskell was wise to give her that flaw.
2. I suppose, even if she was able to get a divorce through Charley's connections, society would have rejected her as a "scarlet woman." The prospect of going off with another man was probably too shocking for her, even if she wasn't particularly religious. (Plus, her mother was still alive when she said that, and she wouldn't have moved Bell to another man's house, though I don't think Sylvia would have gone with Charley even if Bell had already died.)
3. Hmm. I didn't really notice one. I'll have to think about it.
1. Hester seems like a good woman and part of the tragedy is that she would have made a good wife for Philip if he wasn't so besotted by the beautiful, sincere and vivacious Sylvia, It's fitting that Philip did not get to experience so much of what he had loved about Sylvia as she lost all of her vivaciousness before her marriage, At times I found myself wishing that this was a different time (or author) and that Sylvia and Hester partnered up. They seemed to mesh so well and appreciate each other better than Philip and Charley are capable of.
2. Sylvia has acted consistent with her background an society. She is strong willed in doing what she thinks is right. She is choosing to do what she considers the best of her limited options. She was never that connected to Philip anyway as she just was going through the motions.
3. The story has progressed as anticipated in that Charley returned and Sylvia broke ties with Philip, but I didn't anticipate the other details. I liked Gaskell making Charley a military hero and matching it with Philip's decision to join up. As Gaskell seemed to intend some ambiguity, I did wonder what Philip's next step would be, including suicide. Military life does provide an escape place.
I really have an open mind on what happens next and eagerly await to read Gaskell's choices,
It could happen that a lowly seaman reach the rank of officer like Charley. In nautical slang, it was termed ‘coming through the hawse pipe’.The scene with Philip and the recruiting sergeant called to mind a song of the period, ‘The Recruited Collier’:
"What's the matter with you, me lass, and where's your dashing Jimmy?"
"Them soldier boys have picked him up and taken him far from me,
Last payday, he went into town and them red-coated fellows,
Enticed him in and made him drunk, and he'd better gone to the gallows.
The very sight of his cockade, it sets us all a-cryin',
And me I nearly fainted twice--I thought that I was dyin',
Me father said he'd pay the smart and he'd run for the Golden Guinea,
But the sergeant swore he kissed the book, so now they've got young Jimmy.
When Jimmy talks about the wars, it's worse than death to hear him.
I must go out to hide me tears, because I cannot bear him.
A Brigadier or a Grenadier he says they're sure to make him,
So now he jibes and cracks his jokes and bids me not forsake him.
As I walked o'er yon stubbled field--below where runs the seam,
I think on Jimmy hewing there, but it was all a dream.
He hewed the very coils we burn, so when this fire I'm lighten',
To think the lumps was in his hands--it sets me heart a-beating.
So break me heart and then it's o'er, oh break me heart, me dearie,
As I lie in this cold, cold bed, of the single life I'm weary."
There’s a very authentic rendition by Kate Rusby.
I was gripped by the unfolding of what were probably the most dramatic scenes yet in the book. They were full of ironies. Sylvia’s quarrel with Philip, making her rush out into the night to her ‘mother-like’ sea whilst her own mother lay dying at home. She wasn’t singing a sea shanty when helping to pull the rope that brought to shore her ex fiancé but, even three years later, she was still mourning his ‘drowning.’Her journey to Haytersbank Farm to collect leaves for a soothing herbal tea for her mother was as futile as Charley’s journey there to wait for her at the gate. Haytersbank seemed symbolic, a broken down, sterile ghost from the past for both of them.
Charley’s arrival back at Monkshaven was the final cannon ball shot through Philip and Sylvia’s wreck of a miserable marriage, that not even bonny baby Bella could salvage.
Sylvia’s reaction to the truth was typically passionate and shocked both men, but, despite what she said, for them both to run away leaving Sylvia to fend for herself was gutless and selfish. At various times Gaskell has described the two men as ‘brave’ but neither covered themselves in glory at this confrontation.
Charley’s threatening behaviour towards Philip was understandable but his angry accusation and denunciation of innocent Sylvia was unforgivable. Charley’s bravado in assuring Sylvia he could have the marriage annulled soon disappeared when he heard her crying child. He didn’t even stay for one last kiss. ‘God help me, he’s gone!’ exclaimed Sylvia. It probably took all that journey back to Newcastle to massage his ego back into shape. Which one of them will keep their half-sixpence the longest?
Another irony would have been that now Charley is a naval lieutenant he could have been ordered to lead press gangs to capture his former whaling mates. What would Sylvia think of that? He probably wouldn’t have mentioned it, along with a few other things.
Philip’s flight from what seemed the inevitable revelation of his deceitfulness was an act of cowardice. Sylvia might not want to see him or come anywhere near him ever again but that doesn’t mean he still has responsibilities towards her and his daughter. He runs blindly away still deluding himself that sometime in the future he can win back her esteem by acting more like Charley. He should have been honest with her before the marriage. She might still have married him in her destitute state and with an ailing mother to support. Now she will never forgive him for deceiving her so selfishly and leaving her little hope for happiness in the future.
Trev wrote: "I was gripped by the unfolding of what were probably the most dramatic scenes yet in the book. T her ‘mo..."Yes, weren’t they gripping! Thanks for sharing how you read it. I read it in a slightly different way, but was equally spellbound by Gaskell’s great writing. Our slow, cumbersome journey to this point in the book has paid off.
At some points I felt like looking into the agonies of someone’s marriage in this age, in our time - it reflected something universal.
In the last part I imagined a chrime novel: who knew what went on in the parlor, was Philip seen, where and why did he go... :)
(so that they would not suspect Charley to have killed him...?)
Reading a Victorian novel set in the 18th Century or Regency is a perplexing endeavour (especially for someone like me whose formation was well into the last century). Do we respond as we imagine Gaskell's contemporaries should, or judge by the standards of the 1790s? None of us would share their attitude towards the lower orders, especially ratings or other ranks in the armed forces. (I believe Wellington refered to his soldiers as 'the scum of the earth' and said he didn't know whether they terrified the enemy but 'by God they terrify me'; although he also said 'if we can get enough of that article [British Infantry] we can do the business'.) As a keen amateur student of naval history, I tend to imagine being an Officer RN in Nelson's day one of the highest aspirations a male human being could entertain (think of Captain Wentworth in Persuasion) and Charley's encounter with the press-gang the best thing that ever happened to him. I don't know if the conclusion of this book will bear that opinion out. But I didn't see Philip's accepting the King's shilling from the RM recruiting sergeant as an attempt to emulate Charley's heroism, but rather like in the song I quoted earlier, the equivalent of going out and hanging himself, like Judas.
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Right, I had the impression Philip left town because he was afraid Charley would "talk." The idea that he might impress Sylvia by coming back as a war hero only came later (when he was drunk and exhausted, if I remember correctly?).
Philip definitely left not only because Charley (or Sylvia) would talk. Even without talking the situation would be evident. Most important of all his crime was too digraceful. He just couldn’t live in their community any longer.
‘If Philip were gay, and brisk, well-dressed like him, returning with martial glory to Monkshaven, would not Sylvia love him once more? Could not he win her heart? He was brave by nature, and the prospect of danger did not daunt him, if ever it presented itself to his imagination.’As all the pubs in England are closed at the moment, I can’t rush out to the local for a ’dog’s nose’ ( Yorkshire beer with a good shot of gin) to test out if it would give me the courage to sign up. I might decide to order some bottles of Yorkshire Stingo https://www.samuelsmithsbrewery.co.uk...
and make up my own ’dog’s nose’ at home. However at 9% proof the Stingo and gin would certainly make me feel like Sylvia - a little ‘’mazed’. (Dialect - mazed = dizzy)
’ Yes, and yet I may be telling yo' lies; if I could but think: but it's my head as is aching so; doctor, I wish yo'd go, for I need being alone, I'm so mazed.'
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I had thought Philip was leaving to kill himself, and so was surprised when he accepted the King's shilling as well. Leaving under a false name, he is now putting Sylvia right back into the same situation she was 3 years earlier-a missing lover with no idea where he is, and unable to move on with her life. Even if he dies, she will never know. Again, a selfish act on par with his neglecting to pass on Kinraid's message.
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Early in 19th century, Lydia Maria Child at the age of 22 wrote Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times By an American. A young woman is engaged to a sailor but he is lost at sea. So instead she marries a man from the local Penobscot Indian tribe and has a child with him. This was an amazingly shocking plot for the time, but Child (who was Lydia Francis at the time) always believed that intermarriage, far from being a problem, was a solution to racism. In the story, the missing sailor turns up again and the Indian nobly cedes his wife and moves West (kind of a sad metaphor for the tribes being displaced.) I haven't actually read the book so I don't know if the sailor was fine with taking on a "half-caste" baby.
Then there are stories of miscommunication or lack of communication. Another movie like this is The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Young lovers are separated when the man is drafted in France for the Algerian war. The girl doesn't hear from him for a long time and meanwhile finds out she is pregnant. Similar to here, her father is dead and her mother is in danger of losing her business, but a rich man wants to marry the girl. This was still a time when having a baby out of wedlock was a scandal. It turns out the draftee was injured and in a hospital for a long time. He doesn't know about the baby until he comes home. He doesn't even get to see his old girlfriend again because she and her mother have moved away. When I saw this movie as a teenager, I thought the girl was awful for not waiting for her lover. But when I saw it again later, I had a very different reaction. The lover convinced her to spend the night with him before he left without ever thinking of the possible consequences. She was very young and had to think of her mother and her baby. Similarly, in our current book, it was for her mother that Sylvia married Philip.
We got the answer to why Charley never wrote, he was at sea and then in prison. As far as Philip, I think his actions in running off and enlisting are selfish. All his guilt weighs him down, as well as his memory of Sylvia saying she doesn't forgive. It seems a bit extreme to me that in one day of wandering around, he becomes so weak and disoriented, even before he starts drinking. But what is supposed to happen to Sylvia and her mother, who was still alive when Philip left, and the baby? Would the ownership of half the store now go to Sylvia? Sylvia still can't marry Charley. At this point Philip thinks he will come back a glamorous military man, but I find it hard to imagine. He is shown to be in poor physical condition, unused to outside life and work, and I think he would despise all the uneducated people around him telling him what to do.
Robin P wrote: " We got the answer to why Charley never wrote, he was at sea and then in prison. ..."Even if he could write, it seemed like he also felt no need to as he relied on Philip transmitting his message to Sylvia and was confident she'd take that information and patiently wait for his possible return. He is a very sure-of-himself man.
Robin P wrote: "Remember the movie Castaway? After we saw it, I told my husband that if I ever disappeared for years, he could go ahead and marry someone else and I would understand!"
I'm not that brave. I'd be afraid I'd see a disappointed face everytime I returned from a business trip. I can visualize her making a list of possible candidates to be my replacement
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Too funny-yeah, I don't think I'd take that risk either.
I'm not sure this was overconfidence on Charley's part-sailors were used to their wives/sweethearts having to wait for them for indefinite periods of time, and as an affianced sweetheart he would have been able to count on her staying true while he was alive.
Deborah wrote: "Philip and Sylvia marry, yet Philip is dissatisfied with his wife. Sylvia obeys him and tries to be a good wife. She is missing the energy of her youth due to the loss of her father and the decline..."1. What do you think of Hester?
If Sylvia’s story so far can be considered to have elements of ‘Cinderella’ (Perrault’s version) - only in reverse........
(ie Sylvia meets a handsome man at a ball who turns out to be a prince, they fall in love, but instead of reuniting happily after a long search by the prince (with one half of a pair of slippers/or a sixpence), he comes back to find she has married his ‘evil’ cousin and had his baby. The prince scarpers with severely wounded pride and her deceitful husband runs off in disgrace, leaving her alone and wretched.......It seems likely that she won’t live happily ever after but we shall wait and see.)
..... then Hester could be considered to be like one of the ‘ugly sisters’ only in reverse. Her love is not for the handsome prince but the deceitful husband of Sylvia. Her ‘jealousy’ is suppressed and manifests itself not in vicious actions and words but in kindliness. This is partly because of her love for Philip but also because of her belief that she is on this earth to put the needs of others before herself. She helps Philip to achieve his goal of marrying Sylvia as well as supporting Sylvia and her mother when they are in need. After the marriage she even tries to understand why Philip is so fascinated with Sylvia and comes to like her even though Sylvia has taken away the one material thing that she covets.
The problem is, her acquiescence to everything that Philip says and does does not help him at all. If the two of them had married would she have been nothing more than a doormat? Has Hester indirectly assisted in Philip’s downfall? Philip treats her like a sister, but a sister might have given him the hard advice he needed and that could have helped him to avoid the tragic consequences that his actions have caused. Maybe Hester needed to act the ‘ugly sister’ role more convincingly even if she was being ‘cruel to be kind.’
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Interesting points. However Philip's fatal flaw was not passing on the message from Charley or letting anyone know he was alive, and Hester didn't know this, so I don't think she could have been expected to give him "hard advice", particularly as the advice would be to stop running after someone who doesn't love him and to love her instead.
I think that Philip was at heart a good man (which we see in his treatment of Sylvia and her mother and his child in general) who committed one unforgivable action which he tried to justify to himself by saying that Charley would not be true to Sylvia. If anything, Hester takes the noble route (which Philip does not) of letting the one she loves try to find happiness with someone else, and then tries to help to make that marriage work for Philip and Sylvia. My heart breaks for Hester, Philip, and Sylvia all at the same time.
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But Hepburn began to wonder what he himself had said—how much of a promise he had made to deliver those last passionate words of Kinraid's. He could not recollect how much, how little he had said; he knew he had spoken hoarsely and low almost at the same time as Carter had uttered his loud joke. But he doubted if Kinraid had caught his words. And then the dread Inner Creature, who lurks in each of our hearts, arose and said, 'It is as well: a promise given is a fetter to the giver. But a promise is not given when it has not been received.'I’ve been pondering this passage describing Philip’s mental state right after Charley was taken. Was he morally obligated to tell Sylvia what he had seen and heard? Or does he have a right to remain silent? I’d love to be back in the classroom to hear the discussion.
You can argue whether he made a promise or had a moral obligation to tell Sylvia of Charlie's words, though I don't see it, but I can't see any possible reasonable argument that he didn't have a moral obligation to tell Charlie's employers, family and friends, including Sylvia, of the fact that Charlie was alive, not dead and had been impressed; he certainly had the obligation to correct any statements by these people that Charlie was dead. And that information alone, without Charlie's words, would have been sufficient to have Sylvia wait for Charlie so Philip chose to not tell anything.If there was that much discussion in my classroom I would be greatly concerned about the values of the students.
I hope I don't appear a cynic, but I wonder how many young men in Philip's situation would feel obliged to further Charley's amatory ambitions.
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Deborah wrote: "Great discussion. Is Philip selfish?"I have to agree with most of this great discussion and say yes, Philip was selfish but it was because he had an unhealthy, possessive infatuation with regards to Sylvia. It was an obsessive love that distorted his moral compass and compelled him to take on such a massive gamble by not passing on Charley’s message.
He was wiling to lavish all his newly gained wealth on her, provide a carriage, fine clothes etc but that was all for his own gratification. Sylvia was grateful to him for his help with her mother and the farm after Daniel died, but would he have done any of that if she hadn’t been there? He used those around him, including the faithful Hester, to achieve his one ambition, even neglecting the business. Contrast Philip’s ‘love’ of Sylvia with that of Kester’s. Kester only ever thought of her needs and feelings, never his own. The loss of Sylvia’s esteem was the end of Philip’s life, such was his obsession with her.
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Kind of, but maybe not as much as it seems to us, who know how Hester feels.
If I understood correctly, there was one point where he "almost" realizes her feelings for him but dismisses the thought because of his modesty. He lived with her and Mrs. Rose for so long that he treats her like an actual sister. To Philip's credit, if Hester were to ask him to go pick up one of her family members in the rain or to watch over one of her family members in her absence, I'm sure he would do it as an actual brother would, and he'd probably even see it as his duty to do so, as a man in a time and place where women's agency was limited and the Roses don't seem to have any male blood relatives around.
He really should have invited her in to dry off that night, though.
1. SO MUCH GREY!The characters and their choices are not black and white, I mean.
So much to ponder!
2.
‘Thee and me was niver meant to go together. It's not in me to forgive,—I sometimes think it's not in me to forget.Read the room, Philip. Read the room.
Wedding Raiment
Happy Days
Evil Omens
Rescued from the Waves
An Apparition
A Reckless Recruit
Things Unutterable