I am now through part one of Daughter of Fortune and am fully immersed in the plot line thus far. Eliza now has a sturdy dowry that her guardians are happy with, so they begin searching for a husband for her. Miss Rose looks for a man who comes from a good family name, wealth, and class. Miss Rose finds the perfect match, Mr. Steward. He is a sailor who is of athletic build and great service. The girls begin the courting process but the plan backfires when Michael Steward misinterprets Miss Rose’s nice favors as love for him. Miss Rose realizes that he never had feelings for Eliza, only for her.
Also in my recent reading, I learned of Miss Rose’s youth before she journeyed to Chile with Jeremy. She was a young aspiring opera singer who fell in love with and older accomplished performer, Karl Bretzner. While his show is in town they fall in love and share intimacy. When it is time for him to depart the two of them take a farewell trip to Vienna where secrets about Karl are revealed. When Jeremy comes to rescue Rose and bring her home to Vienna, he slips the secret of Karl’s wife and two kids to Rose. Filled with feelings of betrayal and anger Rose stays with her aunt in Scotland for a period of time in order to get over her love, and let the rumors back home settle down. When she returns home to England she is a girl of independence and no emotions on the topic of love.
The topic of gender superiority surfaced yet again in my reading. This theme is illustrated through Karl’s love affair with Miss Rose. He is in a relationship and confessing his love to her, mean while he has a family waiting for him back at home. This shows his feelings of invincibility being a man more powerful than his wife. He knows that if his wife has a desire to thrive and prosper she would never leave him or her children. For Miss Rose, her walking away from him in Vienna is the ultimate display of independent womanhood. She is declaring herself as a strong woman who can walk away from a man and still live her life. This is refreshing to see because all through the reading the female characters speak of men as their only means to survival in the real world.
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