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edenfallingI mentioned a couple weeks ago that I dream of a Narnian genderswap retelling of LWW, wherein the four Pevensie siblings are Mary, Stephen, Edith, and Laurence rather than Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy -- which would obviously change the intra-familial relationship dynamics a lot, and would then throw monkey wrenches into Lewis's rather gender-essentialist plot devices.
I am still not writing the alternate version of LWW. But. I am doing some background world-building and character exploration, of which this is one piece. In this world, Mary is struggling with issues Peter never had to face, and her troubles have the knock-on effect of making Edith's pre-Narnia family role very different from Edmund's, though she's equally unhappy in it.
So. 575 words on Edith, Mary, and their mother. The title is from Langston Hughes's poem "A Dream Deferred."
[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]
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Fester Like a Sore
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When Edith is very young, she wants to be exactly like Mary. Mary is brave and kind and always knows how to make things better. Mary knows everything. Mary is perfect.
"No one is perfect, Edie," Mary says. Then she smiles and hugs Edith and adds, "But I think Mother comes close -- certainly much closer than I do."
As she gets older, Edith begins to agree. Because Mary has gone off to school for months and months, and when she comes home she isn't Mary anymore. She doesn't laugh as much, doesn't smile as much. There's something tight around her eyes, like she's always pinching herself in, holding herself back. She won't run around in the garden with Stephen and Edith and Laurie. She won't play pretend.
Mary is lying all the time.
Mother never lies. Mother doesn't play games with Edith and the boys either, but that's because she doesn't want to. Mary wants to, but Mary won't let herself.
Edith doesn't want to be anything like Mary. She'd rather be like Mother.
She takes to following Mother around the house, watching her cook and clean and sew. She begs and begs until Mother takes her to the market and shows her how to find good food for a bargain, how to plan a week's menu, how to stretch a budget to cover six people. Edith loves learning what Mother does, the same way she likes to learn about practical things like furniture joints and piping and what keeps rain from coming down the chimney flue. Mother makes the family work.
Mary doesn't know how to do any of this. Mary never wanted to learn. Even now that she's pretending to be someone else, Mary only shuts herself up in her room and reads and reads and reads, unless she's sneaking out and going places she won't tell Edith or the boys about.
Edith is a good daughter. Not like Mary.
But Mother loves Mary best. Mother is always talking about Mary, staring at Mary when she thinks nobody is watching, cooking Mary's favorite foods, spending just a bit more on Mary's clothes, telling Mary to look after Stephen and Edith and Laurie.
Mary doesn't know how to look after anyone. All she can do is tell stories -- she won't even put plasters on scrapes or hit people for calling Edith names the way she used to. Edith is the one who knows how to be useful. Edith is the one Mother should trust.
Except Mother just tells Edith not to worry and keeps trying to change Mary.
Edith doesn't want to be like her sister anymore. She doesn't think she wants to be like Mother either. Neither of them is anything like perfect. Neither of them pays any attention to her. Neither of them loves her, not really. Stephen and Laurie follow their lead; they think Edith is boring, like the old shoes they kick across their room and never care about at all.
Edith is so tired of being the good daughter. She's so tired of tiptoeing around Mary, of helping Mother hold everything together, of biting her tongue and not talking back to Stephen and looking after Laurie. She wants someone to see her and trust her and think she's important. Just one person. Just once.
When the Witch smiles at her, tells her she trusts Edith to think of a way to bring her family into Narnia, and calls her "daughter," Edith is hers in a heartbeat.
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Inspired by the 9/6/10![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
15_minute_fic word #151: sedate
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As you can see, Edith is like Edmund in some respects -- the practical bent that shows up in Edmund's interest in roads and railway schedules, the sort of push-pull pre-Narnia relationship with Peter (or Mary), a feeling of being unappreciated by family -- but she's channeled those similarities in rather different directions. Edmund is superficially the one pulling his family apart. Edith is superficially the one holding hers together.
Incidentally, Edith ends up much more associated with Jadis than Edmund did. Because she's female, she's seen as a potential apprentice and heir to the Witch. And to some degree that's fair, because Edith takes Jadis as a role model -- not in morality, obviously, but in the sense that she's finally found an example of a woman who unapologetically wields power without compromising her sense of self or renouncing outward trappings of femininity like dresses and jewelry. Mrs. Pevensie doesn't overtly wield power, and before Narnia, Mary is alternately trying to deny her true self and be a sort of wind-up caricature of what she thinks a "proper" girl is like, or running away, acting out, and trying to deny that she is a girl.
I am still not writing the alternate version of LWW. But. I am doing some background world-building and character exploration, of which this is one piece. In this world, Mary is struggling with issues Peter never had to face, and her troubles have the knock-on effect of making Edith's pre-Narnia family role very different from Edmund's, though she's equally unhappy in it.
So. 575 words on Edith, Mary, and their mother. The title is from Langston Hughes's poem "A Dream Deferred."
[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]
---------------------------------------------
Fester Like a Sore
---------------------------------------------
When Edith is very young, she wants to be exactly like Mary. Mary is brave and kind and always knows how to make things better. Mary knows everything. Mary is perfect.
"No one is perfect, Edie," Mary says. Then she smiles and hugs Edith and adds, "But I think Mother comes close -- certainly much closer than I do."
As she gets older, Edith begins to agree. Because Mary has gone off to school for months and months, and when she comes home she isn't Mary anymore. She doesn't laugh as much, doesn't smile as much. There's something tight around her eyes, like she's always pinching herself in, holding herself back. She won't run around in the garden with Stephen and Edith and Laurie. She won't play pretend.
Mary is lying all the time.
Mother never lies. Mother doesn't play games with Edith and the boys either, but that's because she doesn't want to. Mary wants to, but Mary won't let herself.
Edith doesn't want to be anything like Mary. She'd rather be like Mother.
She takes to following Mother around the house, watching her cook and clean and sew. She begs and begs until Mother takes her to the market and shows her how to find good food for a bargain, how to plan a week's menu, how to stretch a budget to cover six people. Edith loves learning what Mother does, the same way she likes to learn about practical things like furniture joints and piping and what keeps rain from coming down the chimney flue. Mother makes the family work.
Mary doesn't know how to do any of this. Mary never wanted to learn. Even now that she's pretending to be someone else, Mary only shuts herself up in her room and reads and reads and reads, unless she's sneaking out and going places she won't tell Edith or the boys about.
Edith is a good daughter. Not like Mary.
But Mother loves Mary best. Mother is always talking about Mary, staring at Mary when she thinks nobody is watching, cooking Mary's favorite foods, spending just a bit more on Mary's clothes, telling Mary to look after Stephen and Edith and Laurie.
Mary doesn't know how to look after anyone. All she can do is tell stories -- she won't even put plasters on scrapes or hit people for calling Edith names the way she used to. Edith is the one who knows how to be useful. Edith is the one Mother should trust.
Except Mother just tells Edith not to worry and keeps trying to change Mary.
Edith doesn't want to be like her sister anymore. She doesn't think she wants to be like Mother either. Neither of them is anything like perfect. Neither of them pays any attention to her. Neither of them loves her, not really. Stephen and Laurie follow their lead; they think Edith is boring, like the old shoes they kick across their room and never care about at all.
Edith is so tired of being the good daughter. She's so tired of tiptoeing around Mary, of helping Mother hold everything together, of biting her tongue and not talking back to Stephen and looking after Laurie. She wants someone to see her and trust her and think she's important. Just one person. Just once.
When the Witch smiles at her, tells her she trusts Edith to think of a way to bring her family into Narnia, and calls her "daughter," Edith is hers in a heartbeat.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 9/6/10
15_minute_fic word #151: sedate---------------------------------------------
As you can see, Edith is like Edmund in some respects -- the practical bent that shows up in Edmund's interest in roads and railway schedules, the sort of push-pull pre-Narnia relationship with Peter (or Mary), a feeling of being unappreciated by family -- but she's channeled those similarities in rather different directions. Edmund is superficially the one pulling his family apart. Edith is superficially the one holding hers together.
Incidentally, Edith ends up much more associated with Jadis than Edmund did. Because she's female, she's seen as a potential apprentice and heir to the Witch. And to some degree that's fair, because Edith takes Jadis as a role model -- not in morality, obviously, but in the sense that she's finally found an example of a woman who unapologetically wields power without compromising her sense of self or renouncing outward trappings of femininity like dresses and jewelry. Mrs. Pevensie doesn't overtly wield power, and before Narnia, Mary is alternately trying to deny her true self and be a sort of wind-up caricature of what she thinks a "proper" girl is like, or running away, acting out, and trying to deny that she is a girl.
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Date: 2010-09-08 11:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-09 12:23 am (UTC)There is a certain element of "fallen woman tempting virtuous man" to Jadis's interaction with Edmund, though Edmund is not very virtuous at first and there is, thankfully, no sexual element to their relationship at all. With a woman and a girl, though, my knee-jerk reaction is to think "mentor and protégé" instead of "temptress and victim," and I thought that would be interesting to explore.