Carinadust’s Weblog

pp. 97-99 Why does Olivia so eagerly wish to have a baby?

I think that Olivia wants to have a baby so eagerly to improve her marriage. Olivia is married to Douglas. Douglas is Mr Crawford´s assistant who works as a collector in Satipur. He is in contact with a lot of people, also Indians and he speaks Hindustani very fluently.

Olivia is often bored in her new life in India and feels out of place in the company of the other members of the official British community. The Nawab entered her life as a welcome escape from her tedious existence.

Olivia gets to know the Nawab better step by step, they had a picnic and their relationship intensifies. He tells her that he can talk to her about everything and that they have a rare feeling of togetherness.

Olivia is fascinated by the Nawab and later, when he visits her, her heart beats with strong emotion.

I guess that she is between Douglas an the Nawab in a way. Maybe she notices that she developes feelings for the Nawab because he is so attentive and spends a lot of time with her. But on the other hand she loves Douglas also he has only little time for her.

I suggest that she thinks that a baby could save and strengthen their love and relationship. A lot of people, especially women, think that a baby could rescue a relationship. Ithink that a baby should never be a rescuer, a solution for a marriage crisis!

pp. 82-90 What other stories or films can you think of…

I remember the movie “The Notebook”-2004 (german title: “Wie ein einziger Tag”) adapted from the homonymous book(1996), written by Nicolas Sparks, who is an internationally bestselling author.

I think the story is a bit assimilable with the one of “Heat and Dust”. You have also two plots, one in the 1940s in North Carolina/ USA and the other one decades later.

The movie starts off with an old man in a nursing home reading a story to an old woman each day. The story he reads is about two young lovers named Allie Nelson and Noah Calhoun. They met one evening at a carnival in the 1940´s. Although Allie refuses Noah’s request to go on a date at first, she changes her mind after a double date with her friend. After that, they spent the whole summer together. Allie’s parents disapproved of this and separate Noah and Allie because of Noah’s lack of wealth. After waiting for Noah to write to her for several years, Allie meets and becomes engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon.

Allie did not know that Noah had written 365 letters, one letter a day for a year. He stops writing after a year because he had never gotten a response. In a local newspaper years later, Noah’s picture catches Allie’s eye. He is standing in front of a fully restored, 200 year-old home. The article is filled with praise for his accomplishments. Allie’s heart nearly bursts and she faints; the last time she saw the house it was rotted and decaying, and Noah spoke of his plans to buy and renovate the house.

With her love for Noah still alive, the picture pulls at her heart. She feels she must go back, see if Noah is okay, and tell him about her marriage. Noah seems distant when first seeing Allie. However, he invites her in after she mistakenly drives into his fence. Noah and Allie have lunch, and Noah walks her to her car later that evening. He asks her to come back the next morning, as he has something he wants to show her. Allie goes to her hotel, where she gets a phonecall from Lon. She tells Lon that she’s tired, and will call him the next day. She goes back to Noah’s house in the morning and he takes her out on the lake in a rowboat. Noah shows Allie a part of the lake, where hundreds of white ducks are gathered. It starts to rain heavily, and turns into an absolute downpour. They both wonder why each other ended the relationship and Allie says that she was never ready for the relationship to be over, to which Noah replies “It never was over for me, it still isn’t over”, and he then kisses Allie passionately. He carries her into the house, where they make love. In the morning, Allie asks Noah why he never wrote to her. Noah tells Allie that he wrote 365 letters but she apparently had never received them. When Allie’s mother comes to pick her up after a few days, she learns that her mother’s true love is a lumberjack whom she visits to see and wonder what would’ve happened had she followed her heart. She then leaves Allie to decide who she would like to be with after giving her the letters that Noah sent. Allie is then faced with the decision of picking between her fiance Lon, and her true love Noah.

In the end, she realizes that she needed Noah in her life. She returned to Noah and they lived a long, wonderful life together. Allie gets Alzheimer’s and soon forgets all of her life with Noah. Noah reads from a notebook Allie had written about all that happened in their life together, and soon gets Allie to remember, despite what her doctors said. At night, Noah sneaks into Allie’s room and they die together peacefully in their sleep.

I think the features the stories have in common are for example the fact that they both leave their partner and in a way their assurance to be together with the man they love. I guess a breakup is a big step especially in the 1920´s and as well in the 1940´s because were not as liberated and independent as today  but they did it for love. Another similar feature is the concealment from the meetings with the particular other man adverse their partners.

However, I think that the “love” is also a feature that distinguishes the two stories. Allie leaves her fiancé because she remarks that she still loves Noah and that she feels free and arguably again, she never really loved Lon and Noah never stopped loving her. Olivia really loved Douglas but she was fascinated by the Nawab and fell in love with him, he entered her life at the right moment, but I´m not quiet sure if the Nawab loved Olivia like Noah loved Allie or if he just played with her to acclaim a triumph about the British, to show, especially Douglas, that he can make a British woman happy and content, to demonstrate power at the expense of Olivia´s love.