APS TOGETHER
Day 5
pages 85-105 — start: Miss Chillard spoke to Mrs Trollope
April 10, 2021 by Idra Novey
“Oh, dear Mrs. Collop…I am so weak, Mrs. Scallop…”
The blunders of Mrs. Trollope’s name are so absurd, and painful. Stead wields dialogue like a saber.
Like the couple in Paula Fox’s Desperate Characters, each dialogue between Mrs. Trollope and Mr. Wilkins exposes yet another darkness between them.
Why stay miserable among strangers? Stead provides an answer with Miss Chillard: “who could not bear those at home who knew her sadness.”
To seek the mercy of strangers can feel like a beginning, in a way that going home full of sadness never can.
