From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (whorl) Oh That Hy!
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 08:39:01 

On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Alice Turner wrote:

> >  Well, she is beautiful and passionate, a combination that is pretty
> >attractive.  If you want a more literary interpretaion, I figured that
> >it was related to the allegory of the church as the bride of Christ
> >which is also tied up with Mary Magdelene imagery ("whoring after false
> >gods" sort of thing).  Silk is a redemtive figure (though not exactly
> >Christic) and Hy seemed to me to be the worldly person who is loved, for
> >all of their faults and failings.  Certainly Silk is on a mission to
> >save her - especially at the very end of the book.
> 
> My goodness, that seems a bit much. My own opinion simply is that Hy is No
> Better Than She Should Be and also Big Trouble, and that we haven't heard
> the last of her--she's much too devious and useful a character to abandon
> (alga crosses her cilia and hopes).

I don't know.  Even I who reject a lot of the allegorical interpretations
that get passed around on this list thought that the "flawed bride of
Christ" stuff was as blatant as Silk having a lame foot, his "death" and
resurrection. 

Of course, I think the Bride of Christ is also Big Trouble and maybe even
No Better Than She Should Be.

-Rostrum


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