(urth) AEG: Margaret

[Tom Foster]

Roy C. Lackey wrote:  
> Gid may be talking to Cassie in oblique terms about
> Margaret-as-werewolf, if
> he believes that she is one, but even then, he cannot mean
> Margaret as an
> example of a human who has transformed up. As Gid explains
> it, "It is so
> easy to go down that werewolves have trouble maintaining
> their human forms
> at times." (100) That statement suggests that the
> animal state is the normal
> state for a werewolf, the state that they will revert to
> when they lose
> control. In the only example we see in the book, the large
> wolf that
> accosted Scott was all animal, not some hairy-man form like
> we see in movies
> that looks neither quite like a man nor a wolf.

My impression from this scene was that the man leading the wolf on a 'ludicrously thin leash' (I'm paraphrasing as I don't have the book with me) was the human element of the werewolf, and that Cassie was seeing through the werewolf's 'charm', or whatever. Presumably the other diners just saw a man walk up to Scott, but Cassie can somehow see the true dual nature of the werewolf, perhaps because she has been 'raised up' herself.

If this is the case, then surely she'd also be able to identify other werewolfs, i.e. Margaret, if indeed she were one (heh, heh). 

I've only just finished the book, and have been enjoying going back through the past few months' postings on the book, which I had avoided reading up until now.

I also wanted to mention a quick snippet from a previous post:

**************On Wed Oct 29th, Nigel Price wrote:

“In the context of allegorical interpretations of AEG and the significance of gold in the story, Matthew Henry's use of the proverb is interesting. In his "Concise Commentary", he writes concerning the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price in Matthew 13.44-52:

>>A man may buy gold too dear, but not this
>>Pearl of great price.”*********************

I thought that this was an interesting quote, given the alchemy theme in AEG; the philosopher’s stone is often referred to in medieval alchemical tracts as "the pearl of great price".


Tom