Single Text


Leaving Certificate Ordinary Level – Excellence in English Language and Literature


Feature


Filled with longing; not as emotionally independent as she may appear


Examples


When Josie asks about Hester’s mother, Hester says she loved her ‘More than anythin’ in this cold white world … I watched her walk away from me across the Bot of Cats. And across the Bog of Cats I’ll watch her return’.


At times in the play, Hester begs Carthage to stay: ‘Don’t lave me. Don’t – is it I’ve gotten old and you just hittin’ thirty?’ She begs him to tell her what to do to let her stay: ‘Tell me what to do, Carthage, and I’ll do it, anythin’ for you to come back.’


At the wedding, Hester asks Mrs Kilbride if she has ‘ever been discarded’ the way Hester has: ‘Do ya know what that feels like? To be fl ung on the ashpit and you still alive?’


Hester tries to explain to Carthage why she can’t leave the bog and is close to tears as she says, ‘I can’t go till me mother comes. I’d hoped she’d have come before now and it wouldn’t come to this.’


Cruel and dangerous when her passions are roused


Hester murders Joseph and steals his money because she is jealous of his relationship with their mother. She is unrepentant when confronted by her brother’s ghost, saying, ‘I’d slit your throat again if ya stood here in front of me fl esh and bone’. She tells Carthage ‘Somethin’ evil moved in on me blood’ and led her to commit the brutal murder.


When Carthage refuses to allow Hester to stay on the bog, she says he is leaving her no choice but to wage ‘a vicious war’ against him. She keeps her word, burning the house, sheds and livestock. She says she would ‘burn down the world’ if she had enough fuel. As she stands in front of the fl ames, she asks ‘Will somewan not come and save me from meself before I go and do worse?’


In the fi nal moments of the play, Hester commits the most shocking act of savagery, slitting her daughter’s throat. She does so because she doesn’t want the child to spend her life waiting for a mother who will never return, but the act is brutal.


142


Discussion


Hester has never recovered from her mother’s abandonment. Her refusal to leave the bog is partly because she still clings to the dream that her mother will return some day. Hester claims not to think much of Carthage anymore, but her tough exterior cracks from time to time when she begs him not to go. She shows her vulnerability when she asks Carthage if the age difference between them is the problem.


When Carthage marries Caroline and says Josie will live with them, it is too much for Hester. She chooses death rather than be completely abandoned by those she loves.


Hester is aware of how dangerous she can be and warns those around her to take her threats seriously. When she has burned down the house, she wishes someone would stop her because she fears she will do something worse. It is hard to imagine something worse than what we know Hester has already done. However, even those who know what Hester is capable of are shocked by her savage murder of her own daughter.


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