More Literature in A Long Fatal Love Chase
Alcott’s Novel is Full of Literary and Mythological References
Jul 28, 2009
Louisa May Alcott wrote A Long Fatal Love Chase in the short time frame of two months. The novel was intended for serial publication and required dramatic pacing with a cliffhanger at the end of every installment. Pressed for time and space, Alcott relied on well-known cultural references as a short cut to create character, tone, and mood.
Mariana in the Moated Grange
Mariana in the Moated Grange is a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson based on a line from one of Shakespeare’s plays, Measure for Measure. In Shakespeare’s play, Mariana is a young woman whose lover Angelo has left her when she loses her dowry. She is the abandoned woman.
The scene in Tennyson’s poem is an abandoned farmhouse where everything is run-down and decaying and where Mariana spends her time waiting. The poem has a four-line refrain “She only said, 'My life is dreary / He cometh not,' she said; / She said, 'I am aweary, aweary, / I would that I were dead!”
When Tempest first meets Rosamond, he questions her closely and discovers that she lives a lonely and isolated life. After he discovers her situation, he questions her more closely “So, like ‘Mariana in the moated grange,’ you are often ‘aweary, aweary,’ and wish that you were dead I fancy?” She replies that she has no interest in suicide and wants to live.
Ganymede, Willoughby, and Rosamond
Ganymede is a character from Greek mythology. He is an extremely beautiful young boy. There are various stories surrounding the legend of the young Ganymede but the most common is that the God Zeus captures him and makes him his lover.
When Willoughby first meets Rosamond’s page Lito he checks the exclamation that reveals how much like Tempest Lito looks. It is later revealed that Lito is Tempest’s son whom Tempest had stolen away from his mother and that he bears a strong resemblance to his father. When they discuss the boy’s beauty and whom he might look like, they compare him to a statue of Ganymede.
The Play Medea
The play Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides. The story is that of Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts) and Medea. The central plot is that of the woman scorned who seeks revenge. Jason has abandoned Medea to marry the princess Glauce. Later, Rosamond overhears Tempest talking to his real wife. Rose discovers that her marriage to Tempest is a farce and that there is another woman in Tempest’s life – one whom he abandoned just like Jason abandon’s Medea. The most appalling aspect of Medea’s revenge is the murder of her own children in order to hurt Jason.
In a fit of jealousy and anger, Tempest gets rid of Lito. Tempest hopes to hurt Lito and Rose by separating them from each other. After Rosamond finds a grave that she believes to be Lito’s she attends the play Medea with Tempest. While they are at the play, Tempest’s true wife attempts to make contact with Rosamond and warn her away from Tempest.
When Rosamond finally escapes Tempest she discovers Lito and they become companions in flight and eventually return to Lito’s mother the ‘woman scorned.’ Consequently, like Jason, Tempest can no longer be with his child.
The Wandering Jew
The Wandering Jew is the name of a book that Rosamond was reading when Tempest returns from killing Willoughby. The title is based on a popular Christian and Romantic legend of a Jew who taunted Jesus as he approached the cross. Because of his actions, the Jew was cursed to wander the earth until the second coming. The Wandering Jew is also believed to represent cholera. Wherever he travels, a cholera epidemic is not far behind.
Rosamond’s reading of the book is foreshadowed earlier in A Long Fatal Love Chase when Tempest tells her that “The word ‘must’ is not in my vocabulary. I go and come as I like, and lead the life of the Wandering Jew; with the comfortable difference of knowing I have the privilege of dying when I like.” (13)
When Tempest returns from being a tour guide for Willoughby, he finds Rosamond reading the French novel, The Wandering Jew (the reference probably refers to the version authored by Eugene Sue). Rosamond is relieved to see him and explains that it is a horrible book. Tempest replies that it is a favorite book of his and that he left it out intentionally to see what Rosamond thought of it. Rosamond wonders if there are men who are so thoroughly wicked as the character Rodin and Tempest replies “Yes, I’ve no doubt of it. He was simply a man without a conscience. Do you know, Rose, I sometimes think I have none.” (87)
Tempest confesses to his crime of the day in a roundabout fashion without ever explaining himself to Rosamond. It should come as no surprise that Willoughby’s death at the hands of this ‘Wandering Jew’ is due to cholera.
Alcott, Louisa May. A Long Fatal Love Chase. Dell Publishing. 1995. ISBN 0-440-22301-6
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