Listen, horses scare me. I think I'm beginning to realize why, as a feminist, horses have always frightened me. It's a little crazy, but so I am, so bare with me. (At least I know Jeannie will probably appreciate my insanity!)
In the beginning of chapter 57, Fred is walking to Lowick Parsonage, and the narrator shares his inner thoughts with us: "(he had begun to see that this was a world in which even a spirited young man must sometimes walk for want of a horse to carry him)" (701).
INTERESTING how Rosamond has miscarried because of a horse but Fred wishes he had one so he wouldn't have to walk, conveniently during his time of unemployment and general bastardry. Is the horse a symbol of the patriarch that Fred can't seem to grasp, and yet is given chance after chance after chance?
In the next chapter, Rosamond has been a disobedient wife and what has been given in return? A miscarriage, due to the riding of a horse. Am I connecting the dots, or are there no dots to be connected?
She is of course scolded by her husband: "You will not go again, Rosy; that is understood. If it were the quietest, most familiar horse in the world, there would always be the chance of accident" (717).
Also, I believe this is the painting my brilliant pregnant peer (I'm sorry, I don't remember your name, I am horrible) referenced the day we talked about Fred's lemon of a horse: http://www.1artclub.com/uploads/09-0039.jpg
Terrific post, Katie. Someone needs to write the "horses in Middlemarch" paper.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure that's going to be me!
ReplyDelete