:: nancy, part two (chs. 41-48) ::

I have decided what I think.
   nancy's goodness lies in her selflessness; we like her because she does good to others.

nancy is not righteous, but she is pitiable in her darkness. her helplessness and hopelessness are frustrating -- and sad. she has (she had?) so much potential, but dragged into this pit of filth, degradation, and misery, she's lost any ability or desire to be saved herself. nancy's exertions for good are all to keep others from being like her, and she does it at immense personal risk and pain. yet she won't do it for her own good, to escape!
   and things aren't looking up.

        But perhaps she would recoil from a plot to take the life of Sikes, and that was one of the chief ends to be attained. 'How,' thought the Jew, as he crept homewards, 'can I increase my influence with her? what new power can I acquire?' Such brains are fertile in expedients. If, without extracting a confession from herself, he laid a watch, discovered the object of her altered regard, and threatened to reveal the whole history to Sikes (of whom she stood in no common fear) unless she entered into his designs, could he not secure her compliance? 'I can,' said Fagin, almost aloud. 'She durst not refuse me then. Not for her life, not for her life! I have it all. The means are ready, and shall be set to work. I shall have you yet!'

this is the beginning of the end. just as winter winds litter london with lonely hearts, things cannot go well for nancy -- she is in too deep.

chapter 46 reveals her as a courageous, loyal woman: despite her terror, she keeps her appointment with mr. brownlow and rose, and she refuses to give her companions up, since they have stood by her before... which makes the next chapter all the more heart-wrenching.

the end of chapter 47 is the most intense, disturbing, and powerful scene in all of OT; possibly in all of dickens; possibly that I've ever read.

        The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. The certainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own. She staggered and fell: nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with difficulty, on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief -- Rose Maylie's own -- and holding it up, in her folded hands, as high towards Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer of mercy to her Maker.        It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer staggering backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down.

chapter 48: Of all bad deeds that, under cover of darkness, had been committed within wide London's bounds since night hung over it, that was the worst. Of all the horrors that rose with an ill scent upon the morning air, that was the foulest and most cruel.

yes. oh, yes. how horrific, how foul, how cruel!

I pity nancy. I pity her hopeless life and inability to change; I ache for her despair; I cry that she is brutally murdered. I burn for revenge on sikes -- the tears I (really do) shed for her dark fate, grow cold and turn to tears of hate -- and all I want now is for all these execrable men to get the punishments they deserve for their villainy.

        Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that Providence must sleep. There were twenty score of violent deaths in one long minute of that agony of fear.

there is no greater revenge than mental torture on earth... and after death.

- - -

to break from the heavy topics, there are a few highlights I want to pull out from these chapters unrelated to nancy.
   noah and charlotte arrive in london, married and looking for ... "work". wink wink. noah gives fagin a preprepared name -- morris bolter -- but when fagin has a "job" for him... "'No, no -- none of that. It's not in my department, that ain't,'" he says, "backing towards the door, and shaking his head with a kind of sober alarm."
   bolter? indeed. how apt.

you know I can't resist comic relief, and I felt it was necessary to end this post on a lighter note.

'Do not heed my friend, Miss Maylie,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'he does not mean what he says. 'Yes, he does,' growled Mr. Grimwig. 'No, he does not,' said Mr. Brownlow, obviously rising in wrath as he spoke.      'He'll eat his head, if he doesn't,' growled Mr. Grimwig. 'He would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,' said Mr. Brownlow. 'And he'd uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,' responded Mr. Grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor. Having gone thus far, the two old gentlemen severally took snuff, and afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable custom.

the pieces are starting to come together, as well. can you believe we're almost done? only a day or two more (*restrains self from bursting into unrelated song*) and OT will be over.
   that's okay, though. dickens wrote 13 other novels >:)