NPPF Aunt Maud

[David Morris]

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> One wonders though -- Kinbote answering Keith here perhaps -- whether there
> is something in this superimposition of Hazel onto Maud. Given the lesbian
> and incest speculations, the mirroring effects in the goings-on in the
> Zemblan court and the Shade household, the lack of any mention in the poem
> of Maud's presence as Hazel was growing up, and Hazel's latent emotional
> disorders, is there cause to consider Maud as *Hazel's* seducer? Perhaps the
> imagery in Shade's poem is a subconscious manifestation of the *parental*
> shame and remorse he has tried to submerge since his daughter's suicide?

Hazel is sixteen when Maude dies, well into high school, so it is curious that
she is invisible in any interaction with Hazel (or Sybil) in the poem.  Shade's
occupation of the house is continuous from childhood through his own death. 
Woldn't it seem likely that Maude would stay on there as well?  BTW, I
speculated Maude's abuse of Hazel and Shade's guilt a long while back, but the
evidence is so thin...

DM

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