Rosa is without a doubt one of the
most pitiable characters in Hope Leslie. Her feelings for Ser Philip are
sadly obsessive, but her feelings towards Hope Leslie are of a greater interest
to me. Rosa's struggle is the conflict between her extreme jealousy and her
undeniable affection for Hope Leslie. The conflict of these emotions is evident
in every significant interaction between Rosa and Hope. Rosa confesses her love
for Ser Philip and her unhappiness to Hope, and says "I have hated you,
lady; you who look so like an angel of pity on me; and this very day, when I
saw Ser Philip hand you into that boat…I could have plunged this dagger into
your bosom". However, when given the chance a moment later to take Hope's
life, Rosa instead cradles Hope in her arms and kisses her forehead "with
an undefinable sensation of joy that he (Rosa) might thus approach angelic
purity". While on the ship, Rosa prays aloud for the deliverance of Hope
from Ser Philip’s plot, and then remarks that “I would give my poor life, and a
thousand more, if I had them, to save Hope Leslie, but I will never do her a
menial service.” Rosa’s love for Hope is clear at this point, but it is still
intermingled with feelings of jealousy that repel her from acting as Hope’s
handmaid at Ser Philip’s request. Rosa’s emotions come to a climax with her
final act, throwing the lamp into the barrel of gunpowder. It is difficult to
say whether this act was driven by her jealousy, her love for Hope, her
self-pity, her simultaneous love and hate for Ser Philip, or a confusing
mixture of all of them. I look forward to reading someone’s thoughts.
I believe that a simultaneous reaction of love for Hope Leslie and hate for Sir Philip prompted Rosa to throw the lamp into the gunpowder. There are many other examples of love and hate in the novel, some of which we discussed in class on Thursday. Whenever characters of the two different cultures interact in Hope Leslie, there is usually a feeling of both hostility and tenderness. Usually this hostility is towards the other culture, not necessarily the other person in the interaction. Nelema exemplifies this theme a few times throughout the plot. She has much hatred for the white race, but will go out of her way to help certain white people.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with the comment someone brought up in class about Rosa asserting her agency when she tossed the lantern into the gunpowder. Throughout the story, as you have said, Rosa is a character that elicits much pity from the reader. She kind of just lurks in the shadows of the story until her final act? For this reason I think she is instrumental in Sedgwicks commentary on the idea of founding mothers of our nation. What I mean is, while Magawisca and Hope are headstrong and assertive, and Mrs. Fletcher is submissive and obedient, Rosa provides an inbetween. She starts out as submissive but slowly begins to make decisions for her self (such as approaching Hope/ and sparing Hope's life) instead of submitting to Sir philip and to her own feelings. By the end of the novel/ she takes matters into her own hands and completely blows the readers away by her decision to blow up the ship. Thus, Rosa's character shows that women of all sorts -not just ones like Hope/Magawisca - have the ability to influence history.
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