The Life and Death of Harriett Frean

[Lady Lazarus]

Hello all!

Firstly, my apologies for joining the forum and then posting few and far between posts (I feel like I need to re-introduce myself everytime I return!).

I'm currently reading May Sinclair's 'Life and Death of Harriett Frean' for my Modernism module and I've really enjoyed studying it. After some very lengthy class discussions about the symbolism however I am still trying to make sense of the blue egg, the red campions, the dirty blue pailings and the obsession about babies with red hair! I thought it might be interesting to see how others have made sense of these symbols!?

It's not for an assignment by the way, just genuine curiosity!

Sarah.

[cacian]

Hi Lady Lazarus I found reading some passages from this book rather disturbing.
Anyway this is what I think the symbols mean:

The blue egg I guess signifies a baby boy. May be Harriet Parents wanted a baby boy. The boy that never was that would be the symbol for it.
Maybe Harriet parents wanted a baby boy but had a girl instead and that would be her.

Red Campion here is a link:
http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/whiteknightsbiodiversity/2011/11/19/red-campion-fairies-and-snakes/


I]Past the second turn you came to the waste ground covered with old boots
and rusted, crumpled tins. The little dirty brown house stood there behind
the rickety blue palings;[/I]


But three years went before Harriett understood how wise they had been,
and why her mother took her again and again into Black's Lane to pick red
campion, so that it was always the red campion she remembered. They must
have known all the time about Black's Lane; Annie, the housemaid, used to
say it was a bad place; something had happened to a little girl there.
Annie hushed and reddened and wouldn't tell you what it was. Then one day,
when she was thirteen, standing by the apple tree, Connie Hancock told
her. A secret... Behind the dirty blue palings...

I think in these passages highlighted the word 'dirty' in reference to the colours brown and blue.
I am guessing is to do with the 'secret' the something happened there.
Dirty also in our modern day understanding is often linked with 'sex'.

Obsession with babies with red hair I am not sure I think there is element of red the colour.
They also say that red haired is a resecive gene so I do not know.