I found this story not easy to follow. In the beginning who is Cameron? Is Charlotte Mew the narrator? A character in the story? Both?
The diction was presented on a very elevated level, making it all the more difficult to understand. From the beginning I believed the event in the church to be a kind of ceremony. The girl was clothed in all white and was led to the alter. Coming from a religious background I assumed she was entering the convent. Though I was confused because of the numerous negative attributes the scene presented. For example, the church doors were locked, it was night, and the woman was screaming.
Towards the end of the story I realized it had to be some sort of sacrificial ceremony? or a punishment? Regardless both ended in death for the woman.
I found it odd that the three witnesses King, Ella and the narrator fled from the scene rather quickly. When they told their account of the story to their host and the Consul both responded with pity but with a similar response that there was nothing to do. It seemed this type of act happened regularly without much regard.
I agree, it seemed to me as if it was a regular thing for women to be taken up to this sacrifice. It was very clear that women were not of the same status as men, and that they were very much inferior. I wish the story would have given a little more description as to why women were of such lower ranking to men- what could the reasoning be?
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