Tuesday 6 March 2012

Martha -- a classic tragic heroine?

Sarah Bernhardt -- really going for it in one of her many tragic heroine roles.  Martha was not quite so melodramatic as this.....


This is a short extract from the comprehensive Q and A page on my web site:

Did you intend Martha to be a classic tragic heroine?

Again, I did not have to work at this.  It was clear to me right from the beginning that as she travels through a long and exciting life she trails disaster in her wake.  Her beauty is the source of her strength and also her curse, and as she survives one terrifying episode after another she loves and loses not just one good man but five.  Many of her enemies love her too, or at least lust after her.  In some ways she is naive about her own power over men;  but her friends and family see it perfectly well, and do their best to warn her and protect her.  There is an inexorable momentum in Martha’s tragedy.  In some way it is surprising that she survives into her seventies, but it must be clear to all the readers of the Saga (by the time they get to Volume 4 or 5) that Martha will not die in her bed.  Nor does she.............

No comments: