Finally I watched The Woodlanders.
It was hard to watch and it is harder to write about. I’ve read your posts too and I am touched by them too.
I love Thomas Hardy, though I never read The Woodlanders, but I love Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which is another sad novel. And TW somehow reminds me of that.
I went through the whole misery of hoping Giles and Grace would be a happy couple finally. I don’t want to write about the shock of realizing the consequences of Grace wouldn’t follow her heart. It is too (I mean
exactly) life-like to me.
Now I try to see the story and the people from another side. Trying to think of the greatness and power of pure love. And if I do this, I arrive to the path, that all of these people are great.
I think of it like this (just thoughts of course, just „meditating”), what if...:
Grace has three teachers. The father, the lover (it doesn’t matter that they weren’t together because
they were), and the doctor/husband. Grace has to learn things, to know herself, express herself and her true love, no matter what the society or family expects from her, how to see through the manipulations of her father and the doctor etc.
The father does his best. He is convinced that he knows better what his daughter deserves. The father wants to see Grace to be appreciated, but he himself doesn’t appreaciate or honour her feelings. Grace doesn’t notice it, because she loves her father. She doesn’t show him a mirror in which he can face his manipulation.
The doctor also does the best he can. Believing in science, he shows Grace another world, another universe, that is different and somehow contradictory to her „ordinary” or „usual” life. She cannot notice that this „love” she gets from the doctor, is devastating. She cannot notice that he doesn’t believe the soul. Altough he warns her in the beginning (the scene when they’re talking about human brain), she wants to believe others’ beliefs, ignoring hers. She wants to fit his father’s world, she wants to fit his husband’s world, but she loses herself, beacuse she cannot give a chance to listen to her heart.
Father and doctor, they try their best, with their words and acts, they do warn Grace, warn about the life she can have with them, but she misunderstands. She thinks her job is to follow what is said to her, she might think that not her but somebody else shall make decisions about her life, instead of responding with her heart: saying yes to Giles.
Giles does the best as well. He just lives, nothing more. He just gives. That is all he can, lives without manipulating, forcing Grace to do anything. He just loves her, that’s all. Yes, he is afraid of not having enough time to tell her what’s in his heart. But then he shows, instead of speaking words, he shows what is in his heart. He is always there. Withouth demands or anger. He acts for Grace.
The three teacher wants to lead her to find her way, see the difference, make decisions, know her heart. Be brave and love. Go back to the childhood and love like a child, with trust and faith. The tree is there, with their initials in the bark. But only after she loses Giles, she realises the world of her own. She maybe realises that it is her who is responsible.
And something I’d like to add, perhaps a bit off-topic, but I don’t know.
I like Rilke’s poems very much from my youth. Since I’m aware of RS, I connect one poem to him. That is Archaic Torso of Apollo.
Apollo is one of my favourite Greek God, God of lot of things, including light, healing, poetry, arts…
I can see Giles is like Apollo. Maybe the light and the radiation can explain…
Enjoy
Archaic Torso of Apollo
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
and here is the original poem
Archaïscher Torso Apollos
Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,
sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.
Sonst stünde dieser Stein enstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht wie Raubtierfelle;
und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.