Psychological abuse of wives is no new thing in literature: how many readers of George Eliot have recognised the similarities between Daniel Deronda and the current plot-line in the Archers (Report, 12 September)? Between Helen Titchener and Rob in Ambridge and Gwendolen Harleth and Grandcourt in the Eliot novel? In both narratives the women are trapped in marriages with men society thinks irreproachable but whom we know to be manipulating monsters who rape them night by night. Gwendolen fantasises and dreams of stabbing Grandcourt, and then persuades herself she is responsible for his death by drowning in a boating accident. Helen, goaded beyond endurance by Rob’s psychological abuse, wounds him with the knife he has pressed into her hand. Gwendolen, now released from Grandcourt’s psychological torment, finds a kind of peace. Helen has been exonerated by the court from the attempted murder charge – will she now find some kind of resolution? It is in the hands of the new editor.
Barbara Dennis
Oxford
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