Sunday, June 12, 2016

Daddy-Long-Legs - a hermeneutic of suspicion


Let's see where a hermeneutic of suspicion leads us in reading further into Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-Legs, focusing upon a letter the protagonist was writing to her 'benefactor':
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Isn't it funny? I started to write to you yesterday afternoon, but as far as I got was the heading, 'Dear Daddy-Long-Legs', and then I remembered I'd promised to pick some blackberries for supper, so I went off and left the sheet lying on the table, and when I came back today, what do you think I found sitting in the middle of the page? A real true Daddy-Long-Legs!

I picked him up very gently by one leg, and dropped him out of the window. I wouldn't hurt one of them for the world. They always remind me of you . . .
This sounds charming, but Jerusha has, in effect, 'defenestrated' the spider. She says she "wouldn't hurt one of them for the world," but she has tossed this one out of her world and into the wide, wild world! Does she suspect a trap awaiting her if she grows too close to this hidden man?

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