If you adore Elizabethan literature like I do, you may have come across Henry James' Washington Square.
If you haven't, I highly recomend this gorgeous book. For the sake of uploading something, I decided to share with you a creative response I did this year for my Literature class.
I named it, The Unfinished Chapter. To give you some context, I answered the question that lingered on my class mates minds, 'How was Catherine like when she was older?' 'What would she have done as someone who was guiding someone who was in the same situation she was in?'
I choose to write another chapter in Henry James’ style of Washington Square, as I wanted to expand on the idea that Catherine was a confident to many young people, as well as illustrate how I think her life would turn out with some of the themes of the novel. Such as the ‘tide of fashion’, her views on love and being loved, mercenaries, families, travel
I also wanted to depict a plot where Catherine was put into a situation where she was to choose to either become a scientifically calculated, forever statistical, not so warm/soft hearted person, or the airy, romanticizing Aunt Penniman andwhat she would choose.
We see in this chapter that when Catherine makes the realization that she is making this betrayal, she stops to think about it, how betrayal once affected her. She then decides to discontinue it. This is something that I endorse.
I loved writitng it, and I hope that this page or so of writing is somewhat enjoying for you : )
Washington Square - The Unfinished Chapter
It was barely the stroke of midnight when Catherine awoke to the sound of a brass doorknocker connecting with the newly polished Oak wood that was her front door. She found that she did not even have summon the maid, as she heard the brisk opening and the closing of the front door, followed by the soft muffled murmur owned by two females. Both distinctly known to Catherine.
A few moments later Catherine found herself in the company of Mary Sturtevant, (The last name might be familiar to you as the surname is that of the older, newly married Mrs. Ludlow.) in her richly decorated Parisian, brightly lit drawing room. Of course she had not traveled to such decedent places in the recent years, not since her father took Aunt Lavina and herself to their last trip to Paris. After all there was little time for such pleasures with her busy days besides the fact that she hardly found them pleasurable anymore. Though she did keep little souvenirs that her father had collected during his own travels.
She gladly found that they did not produce any sentimental feelings for her. But she did take care to ensure that European paintings, more specifically those that contain depictions of the Alps were not displayed as they seemed to bring a chill shooting through her body even during the hottest of Junes days, that’s if she happened to pass one by chance.
This room was a symbol to her of something she had achieved, due to her newly found right of decision. Each floral pattern, each selection of furniture and each placement of object was her decision. None of these choices were influenced due to the fashions of this time. Instead she created on her own.
This room was the illustration that her expensive dress sense had developed and expanded in to something more, but now it wasn’t seen as something negative. She viewed this room as something she was proud of. Something that she found that was pleasing as well as a simple kind of magnificent. All the things that she was taught to believe she was not.
Soon after the revelation of her new beloved room when she had commenced receiving her company she had found that the celebratory occasions which she had frequently attended, included cutlery that had a whimsical style mixed with odd delicate carvings that appealed more to Catherine’s tastes rather than the fashionably smooth dull knives and forks.
