A White Night- Emily Armstrong

As most others have seemed to mention I found Charlotte Mew’s piece to be the slightly confusing. From the start there wasn’t really an indication as to who the narrator was or what their gender may be, yet it then falls into the story of Cameron, his sister and her husband. The story became all the more perplexing as they witness a sacrificial ritual where it seems a woman is buried alive. A moment that struck a chord with me was when the captive woman becomes fascinated by a burning candle in the darkness of the chamber; “the light had lifted something, given back to her an unimpaired identity. She was at last in full possession of herself.” From this moment onward the woman faces her torture and the ritual with an almost tranquility. She may have realized that she is to lose her life in the process, yet is unaffected as she had finally gained her sense of self. This moment to me paralleled Edna’s epiphany in “The Awakening” when she similarly welcomed her death in the ocean after fully knowing her own inner soul.