it goes all the way back, of course, to at least Psyche and Cupid
Ooh, you're very good. I just read the DWJ essay, and she considers the story of Cupid and Psyche to be a sort of subterranean influence on F&H. (Apparently she once pointed out to her editor that Tom is nearly blind, and works with a bow -- I can't help a little eyeroll at that, but the point is a good one, about the recurring theme of failing by trying to look at what you're not supposed to see.)
I've been going about wondering if it's fair to apply this interpretation to Polly and Tom, or whether this more fleshed-out version of the motif doesn't lend itself.
Despite Polly being the one who "looked," you'd almost think she would be in the role of the one who wasn't finished growing yet, since she was the one who was still a child! For all that the four years' separation must have been brutally hard on Tom, especially if that got him re-ensnared, it does manage to make the idea of a romance between these characters less squicky, since Polly is (more or less) grown up by the time they meet again.
And I'm still not sure what would have happened in those four years that would have made the difference if Polly hadn't "looked" and given themselves away to Laurel. How else, exactly, were Hero and Tan Coul becoming less Hunsdon-y?
That's something I still really don't understand. Maybe part of it was that Tom was increasingly doing, and achieving, things on his own, like the quartet? If so, the conversation between Tom and Mr. Leroy that Polly magically overhears, where Mr. Leroy is trying (unsuccessfully) to force Tom to accept financial backing from Hunsdon House, would certainly make a lot of sense. But Polly must have been at the heart of the process, since it was the connection with her, and not (say) the quartet, that Tom lost as a result of Polly's meddling.
no subject
Ooh, you're very good. I just read the DWJ essay, and she considers the story of Cupid and Psyche to be a sort of subterranean influence on F&H. (Apparently she once pointed out to her editor that Tom is nearly blind, and works with a bow -- I can't help a little eyeroll at that, but the point is a good one, about the recurring theme of failing by trying to look at what you're not supposed to see.)
I've been going about wondering if it's fair to apply this interpretation to Polly and Tom, or whether this more fleshed-out version of the motif doesn't lend itself.
Despite Polly being the one who "looked," you'd almost think she would be in the role of the one who wasn't finished growing yet, since she was the one who was still a child! For all that the four years' separation must have been brutally hard on Tom, especially if that got him re-ensnared, it does manage to make the idea of a romance between these characters less squicky, since Polly is (more or less) grown up by the time they meet again.
And I'm still not sure what would have happened in those four years that would have made the difference if Polly hadn't "looked" and given themselves away to Laurel. How else, exactly, were Hero and Tan Coul becoming less Hunsdon-y?
That's something I still really don't understand. Maybe part of it was that Tom was increasingly doing, and achieving, things on his own, like the quartet? If so, the conversation between Tom and Mr. Leroy that Polly magically overhears, where Mr. Leroy is trying (unsuccessfully) to force Tom to accept financial backing from Hunsdon House, would certainly make a lot of sense. But Polly must have been at the heart of the process, since it was the connection with her, and not (say) the quartet, that Tom lost as a result of Polly's meddling.