Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
[...] This makes Irene at least morally responsible; Irene making sudden physical contact with Clare makes Clare fall. We do know that Irene did have her hand on Clare's arm, so even if you want to claim there was no push, you can't deny that Irene's action caused Clare to go through the window.
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"morally responsible"
I
definitely don't want you on my jury. Irene may have physically caused it, but if the reaction to her approach was not planned nor intended then Irene is not responsible for it. It is an accident*.
* Well, personally I'd blame any person that would design and build a building with a window on the 6th floor that you can just fall out of like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
Let me shift the discussion slightly. What do the three possibilities--accident, suicide, murder--mean to the story?
My thoughts are these. Accident is an extremely unsatisfactory ending--it means no real change or growth for any of the characters; it means the author got tired of writing the story and decided to wrap it up, deus ex machina. Suicide means that Clare either suddenly sees the folly of her life of passing and gives up, or decides death will be a grand gesture of defiance; possible, surely, but abrupt and not in keeping with character.
Murder, though--that is a satisfactory conclusion to Irene's growing anger and dissatisfaction, a way for Irene to punish Clare for being what Irene is not, for being a threat to Irene's well-being. All along we've seen Irene struggle to maintain her status quo by removing Clare from her life, and then, suddenly, she does. It's the logical, suitable ending of the story of these two women. This, as much as anything in the wording of the final scenes, is why I believe Irene killed Clare. It simply fits.
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Bookworm_Girl asked this question earlier. I think the ending is a cop out however you interpret the story. I do think the author decided she'd had enough (had said what she wanted to say about people and/or race and/or life) and just wanted to end it.
When asking about what the different endings mean to the story, I think we need only look at two:
* Murder - Irene pushed Clare
* Ambiguous/obscure cause of death.
The first is the only solution that is clearly hinted at; the author wanted us to see this one. Did she think we might miss it otherwise, or is she wanting us to believe this happened, or is she making the hints so obvious because she wants us to question this? Obviously we all have our own ideas.
For me, an impulse murder is the start-of-a-story sort of thing (how to cope with the consequences). An impulse murder at the end of the story only says that people will lash out when they feel cornered, which is nothing new nor particularly interesting. I don't find it satisfying, and if this was intended then I question why it was not plainly stated. (There seems no reason to make it less than perfectly clear, and there seems no reason to suggest that Irene isn't going to be accused/arrested for the murder, because the accusation - at least - would have made this possibility more credible.)
So I lean toward the second situation: the author wanted the death to be obscure. Either she wanted us to see that it didn't matter, or the obscurity itself is part of the message. I'm inclined to go along with what CRussel suggested earlier, that the cause of death isn't important, this wasn't really part of the story, it was just a way to end it. (But in this I may be underestimating the author ... perhaps.)