Quote:
Originally Posted by paola
So little Vera is upset and nees to be pampered? Having a fulfilling job is ok if you are educated and lucky enough to be born in a well to do family? I must wonder how close she really felt to the poor of London's East End...
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That exact passage also jumped out at me. And there's one where Vera makes it explicit on her first visit to hall at Somerville that neither the cuisine nor the company met her exacting standards.
Another issue of interest for me is Vera's attitude toward homosexuality. I've mentioned that even in retrospect she seems obtuse about Edward's sexuality; when I read a little farther I saw that Edward tried to tell her, almost in so many words. In one letter, he said he doubted he'd marry and mentioned how he identified with
The Loom of Youth, which he'd just read. Really, did Vera need to be hit over the head with a plank? Although it's possible she knew, but didn't want to acknowledge it overtly.
She might have been defensive. For me, there are obvious overtones that while Vera was heterosexual, Winifred's feelings for Vera were those of a lover. I googled a bit to see if there was any new scholarship on the subject of Winifred's lesbianism and found a provocative
article about their friendship by Mark Bostridge, who seems to be a one-man Vera Brittain industry. I giggled at Stella Benson's comment and it seems inescapable to me that the Caitlin/Holtby menage worked better for Vera than the other two.