The Poppies of Lethe
This chapter, aptly named for what the Greek called poppy after the Greeks' river of forgetfulness, Lethe, contains, as you may have guessed, the use of opium to, well, forget things. More specifically, to forget the dreadfulness that is occurring in the town and in Anna's life.
In Wide Green Prison, Anna stole a phial of poppy from Mrs. Mompellion when they had just delivered Mary Daniel's baby. One night, Anna makes a mixture of the poppy resin. She mixes it with honey and eats it to have one night of happiness. That night, she has wonderful dreams with her children and beautiful scenery. She wakes up refreshed, only to face the harsh reality of the village again. More deaths pile up, and one of them happens to be Lib Hancock, Anna's childhood best friend. This makes Anna even more sad than before, and when she realizes she has used up all of the poppy, she has the idea to look for poppy at the Gowdies' house. On her way, she stops by the Talbots' house, where she catches Kate Talbot use a spell on her sickened and dying husband, Richard Talbot. When Anna asks where Kate found such a non-Christian object, she claims that the ghost of Anys Gowdie gave it to her for the price of one shilling. Anna immediately rebukes this fact, stating that Anys Gowdie's cures consisted of herbal medicines, not worthless charms. Anna enters the Gowdies' cottage to find Mrs. Mompellion already there. Wanting to open up to her and become friends, Mrs. Mompellion urges Anna to call her by her first name, Elinor. Anna confesses to Elinor that she did not go to the Gowdies' to find herbs to help others, but rather to find poppy to suit her personal needs. Elinor says that she knows, and reveals to Anna that she has used it before. Elinor cogently opens up to Anna, there is no doubt. Anna learns that Elinor was the only daughter of a wealthy gentleman. She was spoiled, and enjoyed many privileges including education and pleasure for anything she desired. She was fourteen when a young man and the heir to a dukedom began to pursuit her. When Elinor's father found out, he told Elinor to stop immediately. She obeyed her father at first, but when he was off on a business trip, Elinor's pursuer came back and convinced her to elope with him. The man abandoned her at an inn and London, and Elinor had no other choice but to return to her father and brother who had been desperately looking for her. They tried to cover the whole thing up, but there had been a problem: Elinor was pregnant. Full with shame, Elinor had an abortion by using a hot poker. Elinor was saved, but suffered the consequences of being infertile for the rest of her life. She experienced great physical pain, which is when she was introduced to poppy. Michael Mompellion, who was Elinor's father's ward at the time, offered Elinor his friendship and eventually his hand in marriage. Michael was the one that influenced Elinor to be happy again: he "showed [her] sorrows far worse than [hers] and pain far less deserved" and how Elinor could achieve forgiveness for her sins (Brooks, 152). For the outsiders, the marriage between Elinor and Michael made it seem that she had "stooped to marry him" since she was from a wealthy family and Michael was a boy without anything acquired to his name (Brooks, 152). However, what the rest of the world didn't see was how Michael was the one who sacrificed a future with children to marry her. After hearing the story, Anna and Elinor agree to work together to search for herbs that will help the village combat the plague. Anna throws the poppy into the fire.
From Elinor's story, Anna learns "how little we know of the people we live amongst", and she is so right (Brooks, 152). My seventh grade science teacher, Ms. Garcia, once said something that I will always remember: she told our class one day, "Don't judge someone for what you see of them. You don't know what it's like for them when enter their house". Both Anna and Ms. Garcia have true statements. Although you think you may know a person and thus are entitled to judge them, you really can't know what their personal life is like. Even though Elinor seemed like an innocent, lucky, spoiled young girl to the outside world, people didn't see how much she suffered on the inside.
On that note, Elinor's elopement with the heir to the dukedom reminds me of the similar plot in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, where the young and naive Lydia Bennett has an elopement with a soldier. Lydia and her family's reputation is only saved by a wealthy gentleman, Mr. Darcy, who pays the soldier to marry her. Unlike with Lydia's situation, Elinor had nobody who knew about her elopement to save her of humiliation in time. While Lydia gets away with her marriage to her darling Wickham, Elinor suffers the consequences of never being able to bear a child again and the loss of her old life of luxury.
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