March 26, 2007
Alice's Death
I find it interesting that the return of Dana is coupled by the death of Alice. As far as we (the readers) know, Dana is supposed to return when Rufus is about to experience death, but Rufus did not appear to be physically suffering. However, he was emotionally dead. He sold his own children and drove Alice into killing herself. He was so emotionally distraught that he could potentially do harm to himself and others. Were there other motivations besides Alice that drove Rufus to sell the children? Maybe, he is smarter than we all think. Maybe he manipulated Alice into killing herself so that he would appear so emotionally distraught that Dana would return. He would, in fact, have Dana all for himself. There is also another significance to the death of Alice. Since Dana and Alice were seen as the same woman in the novel (according to Rufus), it would appear that Dana would die as well. Dana did seem to die a bit inside, potentially driving her to kill Rufus. Rufus had the ultimate control because he had killed Dana inside and consequently was able to control her. Dana had to put a stop to this underlying control by removing it through force. The death of Alice served as a catalyst to the very weird and complicated finish to the novel.
Posted by dlalonde at March 26, 2007 10:44 PM