In Chapter seven of Housekeeping, Ruth finds pressed flowers in the dictionary when she is looking up a word for Lucille's sewing project. Lucille immediately proposes that they put the flowers into the oven, which horrifies Ruth.
"What will we do with these flowers?"
"Put them in the stove."
"Why do that?"
"What are they good for?" (127)
If someone presses flowers in a book, it means that the flowers have significant value to them. The fact that the flowers are forty years old make make them even more valuable. Not only has Ruth captured flowers from forty years ago, but she also gets to catch a glimpse of her Grandpa's thoughts from forty years ago.
Why does Ruth hold on tightly to the flowers when Lucille seems content to let them go? One reason could be that Ruth has abandonment issues because she believes that her mother abandoned her, whereas Lucille believes that he mother's death was an accident.
There is a dictionary belonging to a deceased relative full of pressed leaves in my house. Every time I go to use the dictionary, I'm careful not to disturb the leaves as wish by a relative close to the deceased. The scene with the pressed flowers reminded me of this.
There is irony in the fact that Ruth didn't want the flowers going into the oven, because they would have ended up going up in flames anyway when the house burned down.
Although it's also not just that Lucille is content to let the flowers go, she seems to want to destroy them. There's something about Ruth wanting to keep the flowers which offends Lucille, more than just a younger-sibling desire to bother her sister. It seems like the flowers represent what Lucille thinks is wrong with Ruth, because she wants to preserve things that have no value, but doesn't care about actually making useful new things (like dresses for Lucille).
ReplyDeleteThis particular rationalization by Lucille is actually very much reflective of the version of her life she wants to protect. I'm glad you brought up the sisters' contrasting interpretations of their mother's deaths. Whereas Ruth is a preservationist and a realist at least in terms of accounts of past events, Lucille does not see these relics as valuable or relevant -- what she does see as valuable and relevant is embarking on a path to housewifery, therefore such trivial souvenirs as pressed flowers are just collateral. Lucille is willing to rewrite history to fit what she sees as convention, even it means sacrificing family.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't realized this connection in that Ruth is so opposed to burning the flowers in the oven when she and Lucille first found them, but then they undoubtedly end up burned when Sylvie and Ruth burn the house down. I think you are almost spot on with the reason the girls each react the way they do. Lucille, although she may be deceiving herself with thinking that her mother's death was an accident, does want to move on from the past and therefore has no qualms about getting rid of the flowers.
ReplyDeleteIt is perhaps surprising that it's Lucille who takes the "easy come, easy go" attitude toward this little family treasure, and Ruth who seems intent on preserving it. This would seem to go against their general inclinations. But I think it's partly evidence of Lucille's increasing impatience with the eccentric side of this whole family--one more reminder of what a weirdo her grandfather was. Perhaps she sees Sylvie as carrying on that same tradition. It's not a conventional reminder of the past, like a photo album--it's an idiosyncratic remnant of her grandfather's whimsical wanderings in the woods. More importantly, it gets in the way of what a dictionary is *for*--finding the definition of "pinking shears," so she can get on with the business of making herself a new dress. Lucille here chooses pragmatism and future-thinking over backward-looking nostalgia.
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