Holly answers “Is Aunt Agatha actually Daniel's mother?”

Susan M asked this question about The Summer Before the War:

Is Aunt Agatha actually Daniel's mother?

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 categ…moreWhat 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...(less)

flag

View all 5 comments

More questions about The Summer Before the War…

The Summer Before the War

by Helen Simonson (Goodreads Author)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions

Learn more