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Loving Sybilla

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Overview and Issue

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  • This is a 3-part Article on Julia Hart's utterly captivating talk at the DDRA's 2005 Edinburgh Week-end, slightly expanded and adapted for publication in written form.

Abstract

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WG088 - PART 1

  • Calling on her education in literary criticism at Oxford, the author dissects the complex character Sybilla Crawford. She does this by arguing that it is love that is behind all of her decisions and her actions: "...I passed without question over that initial introduction to the Dowager Lady Culter, which tells us that she 'controlled the household machinery with half her mind, and kept her own counsel about the other half. When did it become apparent that 'the other half of Sybilla's mind, far from being a mere form of words, contained the key to the mystery of the Chronicles?...".

Part 1 analyses DD's introduction to Sybilla via her beautiful physical appearance so that the reader is left unaware of the importance of what is going on in the other half of her brain. The author demonstrates how Bailey taints the readers' image so carefully crafted over the four previous novels. Pt 1 also analyses how Sybilla could have such an impact on the reader when she is, in fact, absent from QP and PIF. The author also posits that the Chronicles can be regarded as a 5-Act play, with GOK the Prologue.

WG089 - PART 2

  • The author analyses DD's deliberate authorial choices to hide Sybilla's motivations and background and dissects what the reader and other characters can surmise from her physical reactions to events. These include her renowned self-discipline and her love for her family. "...At Dieppe, during the devastating three-way dialogue between herself, Richard and Lymond, in which she alone is in possession of all the relevant facts, and in which each of her sons is under a different misapprehension, she remains in control of the situation: 'She had never ceased to command with her attitude' ...."

WG090 - PART 3

  • "...Our perception of her changes drastically. There she is, for most of the period of the chronicles, sitting in her tower - I mean castle - like the Lady of Shalott, weaving'- I mean stitching - while the world passes by outside. Do her critics see her as the spider in the centre of the web she herself has spun? With a word, she could have saved her son Francis from the agony of his fear and disenchantment, and granted him his heritage...". In the final part, the author analyses Sybilla's seeming passivity and how DD skillfully uses it to mislead the reader and all the other actors in the 5-Act drama. The author brilliantly interprets Sybilla's assumed passivity as endurance.

WG167 - This is a consolidation of all the 3 parts above.

Author

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Dunnett Book Citations

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  • Note: Whilst the author draws on all the novels in TLC, none of the original 3 part article gives sources beyond the book titles. WG167 rectifies this, and gives full citations for all quotations.

Historical People

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  • Tolkien
  • Shakespeare
  • Jane Austen
  • Tennyson

Fictional Characters

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Locations

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  • Scotland
  • France

Bibliography

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  • (none)

Literature

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  • Lord of the Rings
  • Othello
  • Pride & Prejudice

Illustrations

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  • (none)

Historical Events

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  • (none)

Other References

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  • (none)

Quotes from Dunnett

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  • (none)
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