Helen In This Is Water Sparknotes
At the beginning of the journey, Helen sees Rachel as uptight and restricted, for she is not yet comfortable in her womanliness and comfortable in her identity. When Helen first encounters Rachel, she notice her that “Her face was weak rather than decided,” (13). Rachel does what needs to be done and is unable to speak her mind at the proper time. Helen also notices “a hesitation in speaking, or rather tendency to use the wrong words, made her seem more than normally incompetent for her years.” (13). Rachel’s underdeveloped social intelligence is partially due to her mother dying when she was young. The world around Rachel is unexplained to her by her father. She takes in what is around her, but has no formal education or sense of what is
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Helen’s mentorship in combination with her newfound relationship leads to the growth of Rachel. Rachel is turned over to Helen to be brought up as her mother would have liked her to be. Helen feels as if it is her womanly and motherly duty to take care of Rachel. Helen tells Willoughby Vinrace, her father and the owner of the ship, “what she thought of a man who brought up his daughter so that at the age of twenty-four” because Rachel “scarcely knew that men desired women and was terrified by a kid.” (71). Helen’s desire to help Rachel to understand love and attraction can be read in different ways. Is Helen educating Rachel on men and women truly feminist? In a way, Helen is perpetuating the idea that women live to serve men. Either way, Helen brings up topics that Rachel has never talked or thought about. Helen is desperate to “understand why this rather dull, kindly, plausible politician has made so deep an impression her her, for surely at the age of twenty-four this was not natural.” (73). Prior to her encounters with men, she had a bleak outlook on life, yet after experiencing love and intimacy “The vision of her own personality, of herself as a real everlasting thing, different from anything else, unmergeable, like the sea or the wind, flashed into Rachel’s mind, and she became profoundly excited at the thought
Helen’s mentorship in combination with her newfound relationship leads to the growth of Rachel. Rachel is turned over to Helen to be brought up as her mother would have liked her to be. Helen feels as if it is her womanly and motherly duty to take care of Rachel. Helen tells Willoughby Vinrace, her father and the owner of the ship, “what she thought of a man who brought up his daughter so that at the age of twenty-four” because Rachel “scarcely knew that men desired women and was terrified by a kid.” (71). Helen’s desire to help Rachel to understand love and attraction can be read in different ways. Is Helen educating Rachel on men and women truly feminist? In a way, Helen is perpetuating the idea that women live to serve men. Either way, Helen brings up topics that Rachel has never talked or thought about. Helen is desperate to “understand why this rather dull, kindly, plausible politician has made so deep an impression her her, for surely at the age of twenty-four this was not natural.” (73). Prior to her encounters with men, she had a bleak outlook on life, yet after experiencing love and intimacy “The vision of her own personality, of herself as a real everlasting thing, different from anything else, unmergeable, like the sea or the wind, flashed into Rachel’s mind, and she became profoundly excited at the thought