Susan M asked:

This question contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

5 likes · like
9 years ago
21 answers

To answer questions about The Summer Before the War, please sign up.

Susan

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Elizabeth

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Susan Lorenzana

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Diana Conner-Marks

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Holly What a silly question. Of course not. If Agatha were his mother, Daniel would be a bastard. This was not simply a rude term but a serious social category that deprived the child of all sorts of rights and carried profound repercussions for its mother. Agatha would never have been able to marry someone as respectable as John Kent after giving birth to a bastard, and neither she nor her child would be received into polite society--ever.

The question displays such ignorance of the social mores of Victorian England (the period when Agatha would have conceived and given birth). Agatha must truly be Daniel's aunt, just as she is Hugh's. It seems the only reason for imagining that she is anything else is how grieved she is by the cruel, tragic, pointless way Daniel suffers in a vicious war.... because she shouldn't really be THAT sad about such a thing? Really? Are people honestly suggesting that? How shitty would you feel if a niece or nephew you loved ended up irreparably harmed by a senseless war? By the logic people are using here, that real grief over such a thing must imply parenthood, Beatrice should be the mother of another young man who suffers in the war, or Hugh his father.

Leaving aside the particular circumstances that make Agatha so invested in Daniel's fate, the depth of feeling for a child she had such a hand in raising even when he is not her own child is not unrealistic, given that such sorts of surrogate parenting were quite common before people had the methods we now have for dealing with infertility. If you couldn't have your own children, you helped raise someone else's--and you loved them as your own.

And if Agatha were Daniel’s mother--she's clearly not, but if she were.... Well, the disdain and lack of compassion she then shows for another young woman who ends up pregnant with an unwanted child would make Agatha a monster.

In short, NO.

ETA: I decided to see if Helen Simonson had anything to say about the topic. Here's what the author herself said about Agatha's relationship to Daniel and Hugh:

'“I was really interested in how difficult it is to be an aunt who would love to be a mother,” says Simonson. She adds that she needed distance between Agatha and the two boys for other reasons as well. “As a mother of two sons, I’m just unable to write about the mother of two sons. I think my writing would come across as impossibly cheesy because I love my sons to death and would be totally incapable of writing anything nuanced about them!”'

Doesn't sound from that like Agatha is secretly anyone's mother, does it.

https://bookpage.com/interviews/19621...

flag

Beachreader I think by Hugh 's reaction at the cemetery, we are meant to conclude that. That would explain why he was her favorite. And didn't John admonish Agatha more than once, telling her she had given up her right to tell Daniel what to do.

flag

Judy Smith

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Diane Wiesenborn

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Sidna

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Holly Mcneil-hay

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Lisa

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Jean Baxter Is Daniel gay

flag

Eleanor I think there is definitely enough subtle remarks used by the author to at least entertain the idea.
1. Daniel was always the " favorite" of the nephew's
2. Agatha had lost her first fiance before marrying. And there were very strict social requirements at the time. There is a reason many endorsed the idea that " the first baby could come at anytime." It was a way for many marriages to remain intact under such strict requirements. I could see her sister taking the child to raise as her own so that Agatha could still be accepted socially and not be relegated to a spinster life or a convent.
3. I think the way she handled Celeste and her issue is revealing of a women who carried the scars of possibly being socially ostracized and having to give up her baby and the pain of very being able to love and mourn for Daniel as a mother. Such a strong women just was completely deflated by the whole situation.

flag

Debbie

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Caitlin This is silly and suggests that it is impossible to love one's nephew as well as one's own children. I agree with Holly that this would be an impossibility during this era lest Agatha was holed up with her sister during the pregnancy, and her sister didn't mind that she was schtupping her husband.

flag

Nicole

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Carolyn

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

flag

Rachel Holy guacamole! It's been just a little over three months since I read this book and now I feel like I need to go back and re-read it immediately with this new perspective in mind! I didn't think it was possible to love this story any more, and I was wrong. Thank you for asking such a perfect question!

flag

Gretchen Wow, I had never even thought of that! Very interesting!

flag

Mary I think English society would never have accepted Daniel or Agatha was he her illegitimate son. But I am curious why the author did seem to lead us down that path especially in the final chapters when Daniel went to the battlefront and her sorrow was so devasting.

flag