Harriet wrote:
Jenny wrote:
And the fact that he doesn't give her name, or even say "my wife" or "my lover", but "my woman". Creepy.
Not necessarily - I quite like those languages where "my man" and "my husband" are expressed by the same words. But in this case, I assume that they weren't married, and then you get into the tired old what-do-you-call-them thing.
<snip>
To my
sentimental ears, "my woman" conveys "a woman who was mine - as in, she was everything to me, but I don't need to explain that to you, it's too private, and you see my meaning". In my personal meandering off-canon, the woman was pregnant when she died.
But think about it. "My woman." Not "Sarah," or "Becky," or "Jill"; not "someone I cared for" or "a woman who meant a lot to me." Very cavemannish really; it doesn't give her a name or a face or even suggest that there was anything at all between them.
And, leaving the internal logic of the story aside and seeing it from a technical standpoint: why would the scriptwriter make her Gan's "woman" and not Gan's "wife" (which would have been a more effective pathos conveyor and leave the audience less puzzled)? What is he trying to convey by having Gan say "my woman"? Even David Jackson, IIRC, thought it was a bit tough and insensitive-sounding.
Jenny
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Jenny wrote:
But think about it. "My woman." Not "Sarah," or "Becky," or "Jill"; not "someone I cared for" or "a woman who meant a lot to me." Very cavemannish really; it doesn't give her a name or a face or even suggest that there was anything at all between them.
No, the avoidance of her name suggests to me "too private and painful to mention".
An analogy, happily not a painful example: I once had a colleague who, when we first met, always referred to his wife as "my wife". After I had met her (and observed that they were a particularly devoted couple), he began to use her name in conversation; I concluded that when we were merely acquaintances he preferred to preserve a field of privacy around her, which he relaxed once we became friends. When Gan discusses the issue with Jenna, they're acquaintances; maybe he might have opened up more later, but at this point he wishes to give her only the basic information required.
Just listening to some Billie Holiday, which reminds me that she often sings about "my man". BH's men invariably seem to be complete jerks, but I still feel that, when she sings about them, the term conveys intimacy and tenderness.
-
Harriet Monkhouse -
Jenny Kaye