Ann's Family Liking List

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

We hear quite a bit about what the other Marlows, especially Nicola,  think of Ann, but what does Ann, probably the most mysterious Marlow, really think of her siblings?

In Attic Term that she we're told she feels she should be with her sisters to offer sympathy and advice on all occasions, her over-helpfulness and willingness to sacrifice herself for her siblings is legendary (and largely unappreciated), but in what spirit? Duty? Christian charity? Genuine familial love, despite the lack of any signs of reciprocal affection? Why does she keep unpacking their trunks and taking their turns at washing up, even though it only seems to provoke irritation or be taken advantage of?

Would she have called the home if she had been in on the secret in Run Away Home, even if it was likely to land the others in trouble? Will she forgive them for not telling her? 

It sometimes strikes me she behaves in classic Eldest Daughter ways, although she isn't. (That thing she says about wondering about Charlotte Bronte suddenly finding herself the eldest after her elder sisters die always struck me as significant.)

Also, if Ann had a Family Liking List like Nicola does, how would she rank her siblings? Would the events of Run Away Home be likely to change anything? ETA assuming that Ann would allow herself do anything of the kind, of course...

Comments

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure she would never let herself have a Family Liking List but if she did, I think Nicola would be fairly much at the bottom of it, Giles and Karen quite high up, Peter and Ginty in the middle. Not sure what she makes of Lawrie.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

It's Rowan's placement I wonder about, given that she's somtimes the one pleading Ann's cause, or at least explaining her to the others. But the Edward Oeschli plan wouldn't have happened without her, and I wonder whether Ann mightn't feel more betrayed by Rowan and Giles than the younger ones.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced Ann actually likes Rowan, even though Rowan does, as you say, make more of an effort to understand Ann than the others. So I think Rowan is probably near the bottom of the list anyway and definitely Edward Oeschli wouldn't have improved her position.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I'd agree that Ann may not like Rowan, but I can imagine her having more respect for her than for Karen (sort or "Rowan has principles even if I don't agree"). On the other hand, unlike Nicola her Family Like List might not conflate like with respect.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that could be true, given that she's apparently happy to allow her good nature to continue to be taken advantage of re chores, when surely she can see what's going on etc. I suppose that might translate into a list where the siblings who allow her to do things for them (Lawrie, mostly), rather than twitching with irritation (Nicola), or simply never displaying any kind of need or vulnerability (Rowan) would come to the top.

[coughingbear]

There's a bit in Attic Term when she's talking to Ginty and trying to check if Ginty's all right, which always reads to me as showing both genuine affection and a perfectly clear idea of what Ginty is like.

It's possible of course that Ginty zoomed right to the top of her Family Liking List after RAH, just because she wasn't there or involved at all. I do wonder what on earth happened to all the family relationships, not just Ann (what did the parents say?) after that little episode.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

The bit where she talks Ginty down from the wall when she's doing her Cat that Walks thing? Yes, that does suggest she gets Ginty at some fundamental level. But if she can read her siblings, or some of them, that well, then why go on being helpful in a way that clearly provokes mass irritation?

Would the parents have known, necessarily, given that no one actually died?

[coughingbear]

I don't know. At home, I get the impression she's mostly thinking about her mother rather than them, and doing what she thinks will make Mrs Marlow's life easiest, but why she does it at school... Of course, Lawrie and Ginty do in fact tend to welcome and take advantage of it, and I suppose Karen and Rowan are older and Ann's less likely to unpack their suitcases, so it's really Nicola who gets most irritated.

I think the implication is that they are going to have to tell, because Lawrie is chancy about carrying secrets to the grave. Also I can't really imagine Ann agreeing to keep the secret.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Someone remind me of who knew what about the goings-on in Traitor, which I haven't read in years?

[coughingbear]

The parents definitely know the full story; otherwise I think it's just Ginty, Peter and the twins. They're certainly asked to keep it to themselves apart from their parents at the end of Traitor. Jon just knows the cover story when it comes up in Falconer's Lure, and I never get the impression Rowan or the others are better informed. And they're told not to discuss it too much among themselves, which they seem to have stuck to, based on Peter's reaction to Nicola mentioning Foley in Peter's Room.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

My assumption was that no one having died was going to make the telling easier, but that telling was definitely going to happen. At least partial telling, even if not quite the whole gory truth.

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

In End Of Term, when Grandmother makes her unwelcome visit, Ann is described as "the kind of person who takes it for granted one loves one's relations". I think any family ranking list she might have would be one she didn't even acknowledge to herself.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Yes - in a sense I don't think she thinks in those terms about family.

I'm always fascinated by the glimpses we get of Ann being entirely different when outside of the family dynamics - at Guides, being a dorm prefect, with her form team-mates etc - in which she suddenly becomes a default take-charge no-nonsense Marlowe (even Ann thinks there's no point to playing unless you play to win).

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Those glimpses are fascinating. I'm never that sure how to reconcile them with Ann as endlessly-taken-advantage-of sibling, though, if you go on the basis that we initially develop a character within the family before trying it out in the outside world. Are we to imagine Ann behaving helpfully/responsibly as she does at home when she first goes to Kingscote and discovering that it's responded to entirely differently there? Or that, though she has built-in beliefs about automatically loving your relations, she's unhampered by that thinking when no relations are involved and is therefore less wet...?

It's just that one would expect her to be the well-meaning Guide patrol leader who was always nodding understandingly about why someone's uniform was incomplete/they were late/the dog ate their homework. rather than Commander Marlowishly 'handing out the jobs and letting one get on with them'...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I figured that with Guides there's a whole lot of talk about everyone taking responsibility and giving new people opportunities, as well as trying hard to get badges etc while all in the spirit of Guiding. Ann seemed to have taken all that at face value and therefore been the ideal Guide - but I suspect it dawned on her as she got older that life isn't always like that and there's internal politics to deal with. Hence Ann removing all her Guide badges to be re-used, and explaining to Nicola that now she's 16 and can't be a Guide any more, she doesn't "terribly mind".

I think in RAH, family alliances (usually excluding her) are noticed by her for nearly the first time, which is partly why she reacts so badly.

[lobeliaqueen.livejournal.com]

In Run Away Home, I found Ann to be someone who say things very much in black and white eg her response to the Edward situation of "that's the law, so it's right."

Similarly, she assumes that one loves one's family and is puzzled when family relations aren't that smooth eg between Mrs Marlow and her mother. So, the alliances which are clear to everyone else aren't to her. It does seem that, at home, her main alliance is to Mrs Marlow, which may be the reason why she persists in the bed-making and tidying.

I don't like Ann much in Run Away Home although I loved her understanding of Ginty in Attic Term. In that situation, I think she was the best member of the family to talk to her as she's the only one who would approach Ginty without letting her own opinions get in the way - eg Rowan would have thought she should pull herself together because that's what she would do and Lawrie would imagine it into a dramatic "what if" situation.

To answer, the orginai question - I don't think she'd acknowledge to herself that there was a list.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I think one aspect of Ann is that she doesn't have much in common with her siblings and has taken on the role of being the helpful one in order to be involved and needed, probably subconsciously. She is in a rather detached position being the middle child, she was too young to play with Karen and Rowan early on, and then her mother probably needed her to look after and play with the younger ones as Mrs M must have been rushed off her feet. She probably rarely got much attention from her parents and being helpful means she at least gets to spend some time with her mother. Reading the books as a child I saw Ann through Nicola's eyes and was irritated by her, now I see her as a very genuinely good and selfless character. She will have a much happier time I think when she gets away from the family to nursing college. Although she will take it for granted all her life that one loves one's family however little you might have in common with them.

[(Anonymous)]

Also I think Ann is too honest to allow her liking list (if she had such a thing) to be affected by how people felt about her - for example I don't think she would like Lawrie more and Nicola less just because Lawrie let her help whereas Nicola was irritated. Ann would probably respect Nicola's character more, as perhaps with Rowan.
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