Dunnettae: thoughts on Joleta & Marthe
So I was going to write a whole essay on Joleta, but truth be told I don't really have the time, and I've moved on past that part of the series -- I started Ringed Castle last night. So this here is my abortive essay and some notes on Joleta.
One of the most striking figures in Disorderly Knights, a book with quite a number of fascinating characters, is Graham Mallett's young sister Joleta, who is presented as a saintly and spiritual young girl, innocent and virginal, of enormous physical beauty--and who, over the course of the novel, is revealed in fact to be deceitful, murderous and incestuously promiscuous. She dies in spectacular fashion at the 3/4 mark in the novel, murdered by her brother before she has the opportunity to betray him to his enemies: he stabs the pregnant teenager through the heart in full view of several hundred appalled mercenaries.
Dunnett has before given us sympathetic portrayals of women with sexual appetites, Oonagh O'Dwyer being most prominent, but also Hough Isa, Jenny Fleming, and even Margaret Lennox to a certain extent. [Note: I am less enthusiastic about this now--see below. As
vaznetti said recently, Lady Dunnett indulged in more than a bit of slut-shaming in the series.] That said, the portrayal of Joleta Mallett is a bit disturbing, because the girl is simultaneously shown as a victim (of her brother) and as a dangerous, promiscuous, angry creature, whose desires are considered not merely unhealthy but disgusting and immoral. The fact that the hero Lymond sleeps with her when she is barely 17 (or 16: the text is a bit unclear) is held against him by both the text and the other characters, until it is revealed that she was not a virgin and in fact was pregnant at the time. Consent should have come into it, but although the issue is raised, the question of Joleta's consent serves primarily to relieve his guilt by showing that she was already "tainted".
While I suppose that attitude may be reflective of the time the novel is set (although historians are now beginning to show how truly complex attitudes towards sexuality, and sexual behaviors themselves, were at various points in the past), it doesn't go very far to humanize the girl. And it must be noted that, despite the very many points of view in the novel, Dunnett never once gives the reader a look inside Joleta's head.
Joleta Reid Mallett:
What do we know--things stated and accepted as fact by the characters & narrator:
-- Born in 1535 or so (is said to be 16 when she arrives in Scotland in 1551), younger sister of Graham Reid Mallett
-- Raised in Malta, at least part of the time in a convent
-- came to Scotland from Malta in May 1551
-- aborted a pregnancy during the voyage (used herbs Graham provided)
-- pregnant at least once before, possibly by her brother Graham (date of child's birth unclear, but probably no earlier than winter of 1551, because he is later confused for Khaireddin)
-- slept with (had an affair with) Ludovic d'Harcourt in Malta
-- slept with (?? unknown) in ~March of 1552
-- slept with Lymond in May of 1552
-- died 5-6 months pregnant, in September 1552
-- known to have slept with her brother
-- "marked" her partners (appears to have included at least one of the serving men at Midculter & possibly one or more of her own grooms)
-- killed Sybilla's cat
-- got the wetnurse drunk (admitted she found the drunk baby entertaining)
-- could not be left alone with Mariotta's baby
-- violent temper
-- sexually excited by violence
-- an excellent actor (like her brother)
Suspected:
-- someone killed Trotty Lockup in October 1551, before Graham came to Scotland, because Trotty knew that Joleta had had an abortion, and a child already.
-- Joleta was supposed to have revealed her presence in Dumbarton and didn't (why? she wasn't supposed to have gotten pregnant?)
-- might have turned on Graham at St. Mary's if she had had the opportunity, but he killed her before she could betray him
Questions:
-- when did Graham start sexually abusing his (much much younger) sister?
-- how did he get away with it for so long?
-- did he pimp her out to other men than Lymond? (Survey says YES)
-- how do you hold a 16-year-old accountable for her own mental instability & promiscuity, given those circumstances? And wouldn't the sainted Eloise Crawford have ended up much the same, if she'd been treated that way?
And thus dies Joleta, unmourned by everyone except Evangelista Donati, who pays for her affection with her life, in the end, as well. One does wonder what Joleta thought about the child, and if she ever knew what Gabriel had done with it.
*
I also have some thoughts about Marthe, and her role in the overall narrative. This is patched together from comments I made in the last few days, so it's a bit more scattershot.
On Marthe & Jerott, in conversation with
vaznetti: No, Jerott wasn't the only one at fault [for the collapse of their marriage]. Certainly Marthe knew and understood his issues far better than he did hers (or his own), but she never really learned the tools for getting along with people. Manipulating them, yes, but as written she had minimal empathy, except in limited circumstances, such as when Francis was going through withdrawal in Volos. They were ill-matched from the beginning, and not only because Jerott first fixed on her as an acceptable substitute for Francis.
I would have liked to see Marthe given a chance to bloom, and it frustrates me that the women in the story who are acknowledged to have sexual appetites are Margaret and Joleta, whom the text identifies as monsters; Jenny Fleming, a flirt and a trouble-maker; and Guzel, who uses it for power. And Marthe, who commits the unconscionable sin of being bisexual, and dies because the narrative requires a sacrifice.
Couldn't she have lived, and run off with Danny Hislop? ::sigh:: But yes, Marthe as an interdimensional Indiana Jones would be awesome.
In conversation with
lionpyh, regarding Marthe's death in Checkmate:
I can almost see the reason Marthe is the final sacrifice: something about the price that had to be paid for the sins of Sybilla and the first Francis, and that had to be paid in Crawford blood, not a relative stranger's. That line about the hair of Francis Crawford serving its final function, etc etc...
It's just that it's not fair, because in that world, as constructed/interpreted by Lady D, Marthe never had a chance: raised without love or affection, trained to envy from her youth, and alienated from the kind of support structure that would have helped her blossom. There's no particular narrative reason Marthe has to be so messed up, except to show up Francis' superiority--and I suspect Lady D was showing not the environmental factors being better, but the genetic heritage. As in: Sybilla Semple was a better source of genetic material than Berthe de Doubtance was.
And much as I love the hell out of these books, I find that kind of distasteful.
We should remember that Danny Hislop was a bastard too, and yet he turned out fine. Although a man, and while that probably did matter, I suspect it didn't matter quite as much as Lady D implies in the text.
Anyway, so those are some thoughts. Rather more critical than I had original expected any formal commentary to be, but hey, I've been hanging out with y'all for the last fourteen years: something was bound to sink in.
But I do still want that Lymond/Doctor Who crossover in which Marthe becomes a multi-dimensional adventurer...
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.
One of the most striking figures in Disorderly Knights, a book with quite a number of fascinating characters, is Graham Mallett's young sister Joleta, who is presented as a saintly and spiritual young girl, innocent and virginal, of enormous physical beauty--and who, over the course of the novel, is revealed in fact to be deceitful, murderous and incestuously promiscuous. She dies in spectacular fashion at the 3/4 mark in the novel, murdered by her brother before she has the opportunity to betray him to his enemies: he stabs the pregnant teenager through the heart in full view of several hundred appalled mercenaries.
Dunnett has before given us sympathetic portrayals of women with sexual appetites, Oonagh O'Dwyer being most prominent, but also Hough Isa, Jenny Fleming, and even Margaret Lennox to a certain extent. [Note: I am less enthusiastic about this now--see below. As
vaznetti said recently, Lady Dunnett indulged in more than a bit of slut-shaming in the series.] That said, the portrayal of Joleta Mallett is a bit disturbing, because the girl is simultaneously shown as a victim (of her brother) and as a dangerous, promiscuous, angry creature, whose desires are considered not merely unhealthy but disgusting and immoral. The fact that the hero Lymond sleeps with her when she is barely 17 (or 16: the text is a bit unclear) is held against him by both the text and the other characters, until it is revealed that she was not a virgin and in fact was pregnant at the time. Consent should have come into it, but although the issue is raised, the question of Joleta's consent serves primarily to relieve his guilt by showing that she was already "tainted".
While I suppose that attitude may be reflective of the time the novel is set (although historians are now beginning to show how truly complex attitudes towards sexuality, and sexual behaviors themselves, were at various points in the past), it doesn't go very far to humanize the girl. And it must be noted that, despite the very many points of view in the novel, Dunnett never once gives the reader a look inside Joleta's head.
Joleta Reid Mallett:
What do we know--things stated and accepted as fact by the characters & narrator:
-- Born in 1535 or so (is said to be 16 when she arrives in Scotland in 1551), younger sister of Graham Reid Mallett
-- Raised in Malta, at least part of the time in a convent
-- came to Scotland from Malta in May 1551
-- aborted a pregnancy during the voyage (used herbs Graham provided)
-- pregnant at least once before, possibly by her brother Graham (date of child's birth unclear, but probably no earlier than winter of 1551, because he is later confused for Khaireddin)
-- slept with (had an affair with) Ludovic d'Harcourt in Malta
-- slept with (?? unknown) in ~March of 1552
-- slept with Lymond in May of 1552
-- died 5-6 months pregnant, in September 1552
-- known to have slept with her brother
-- "marked" her partners (appears to have included at least one of the serving men at Midculter & possibly one or more of her own grooms)
-- killed Sybilla's cat
-- got the wetnurse drunk (admitted she found the drunk baby entertaining)
-- could not be left alone with Mariotta's baby
-- violent temper
-- sexually excited by violence
-- an excellent actor (like her brother)
Suspected:
-- someone killed Trotty Lockup in October 1551, before Graham came to Scotland, because Trotty knew that Joleta had had an abortion, and a child already.
-- Joleta was supposed to have revealed her presence in Dumbarton and didn't (why? she wasn't supposed to have gotten pregnant?)
-- might have turned on Graham at St. Mary's if she had had the opportunity, but he killed her before she could betray him
Questions:
-- when did Graham start sexually abusing his (much much younger) sister?
-- how did he get away with it for so long?
-- did he pimp her out to other men than Lymond? (Survey says YES)
-- how do you hold a 16-year-old accountable for her own mental instability & promiscuity, given those circumstances? And wouldn't the sainted Eloise Crawford have ended up much the same, if she'd been treated that way?
And thus dies Joleta, unmourned by everyone except Evangelista Donati, who pays for her affection with her life, in the end, as well. One does wonder what Joleta thought about the child, and if she ever knew what Gabriel had done with it.
*
I also have some thoughts about Marthe, and her role in the overall narrative. This is patched together from comments I made in the last few days, so it's a bit more scattershot.
On Marthe & Jerott, in conversation with
vaznetti: No, Jerott wasn't the only one at fault [for the collapse of their marriage]. Certainly Marthe knew and understood his issues far better than he did hers (or his own), but she never really learned the tools for getting along with people. Manipulating them, yes, but as written she had minimal empathy, except in limited circumstances, such as when Francis was going through withdrawal in Volos. They were ill-matched from the beginning, and not only because Jerott first fixed on her as an acceptable substitute for Francis.
I would have liked to see Marthe given a chance to bloom, and it frustrates me that the women in the story who are acknowledged to have sexual appetites are Margaret and Joleta, whom the text identifies as monsters; Jenny Fleming, a flirt and a trouble-maker; and Guzel, who uses it for power. And Marthe, who commits the unconscionable sin of being bisexual, and dies because the narrative requires a sacrifice.
Couldn't she have lived, and run off with Danny Hislop? ::sigh:: But yes, Marthe as an interdimensional Indiana Jones would be awesome.
In conversation with
lionpyh, regarding Marthe's death in Checkmate:
I can almost see the reason Marthe is the final sacrifice: something about the price that had to be paid for the sins of Sybilla and the first Francis, and that had to be paid in Crawford blood, not a relative stranger's. That line about the hair of Francis Crawford serving its final function, etc etc...
It's just that it's not fair, because in that world, as constructed/interpreted by Lady D, Marthe never had a chance: raised without love or affection, trained to envy from her youth, and alienated from the kind of support structure that would have helped her blossom. There's no particular narrative reason Marthe has to be so messed up, except to show up Francis' superiority--and I suspect Lady D was showing not the environmental factors being better, but the genetic heritage. As in: Sybilla Semple was a better source of genetic material than Berthe de Doubtance was.
And much as I love the hell out of these books, I find that kind of distasteful.
We should remember that Danny Hislop was a bastard too, and yet he turned out fine. Although a man, and while that probably did matter, I suspect it didn't matter quite as much as Lady D implies in the text.
Anyway, so those are some thoughts. Rather more critical than I had original expected any formal commentary to be, but hey, I've been hanging out with y'all for the last fourteen years: something was bound to sink in.
But I do still want that Lymond/Doctor Who crossover in which Marthe becomes a multi-dimensional adventurer...
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.