Crimson Petal and the White
Crimson Petal and the White
Basic Info
- Author: Michel Faber
- Year: 2002
- Type: #primary1
Summary (brief)
This one was good. It was really shocking the way the way William Rackham in all his greed "rescued" Sugar from Mrs. Castaways house of prostitution (that's her mom also), just so he could have exclusive sexual access to her; he pays her more money than she knows what to do with and fills her house with furniture; she has indoor plumbing; but life is boring and purposeful and he isn't spending that much time with her; so she does the like "more honorable" thing by becoming his governess, she gets a shitty little bedroom with a chamber pot; when he gets his pregnant, she does all sorts of horrible stuff to try to kill the baby and eventually succeeds; then he totally just discards her; she helped with his business corresponded and he could talk to her like an actual advisor or colleague, and then he was so quick to just photoshop his wife's face over her body, and then fire her and not have anything else to say about it; she ran away with his kid and it serves him right, that piece of shit. The story about Henry being all pious and then burning himself up in a house fire didn't really make that much sense to me.
Major Themes
#postmodern-rewritings
#adaptation
#hatingwomen
#sex
#victorianmorality
#neo-victorian
#revisionistfeministlit
Key Passages / Quotes
Quote 1
quote:: “I am a fallen woman, but I assure you: I did not fall. I was pushed.”
page:: x
themes:: #oppression #patriarchy
Quote 2
Quote 3
Quote 4
Genre Notes
First-person omniscient narrator speaks directly to the reader (you)
Characters / Concepts (if relevant)
Theory Connections
Victorian Afterlife : Victorian Adaptations seem primary concerned with exposing the untold sexuality
Related Texts
My Argument / Interpretation
Dissertation Relevance
How could this matter to my project?
Critical Questions
19th century reconceptualized
how 20-21st writers draw or react