From: Nina Lindsay <nlindsay>
Date: Wed, 06 Sep 1995 07:57:00 -600

Looking back through last month's comments on _The Haunting_ and _The Changeover_, a point in Megan's comment of August 23 on the trustworthiness of characters struck me. She said:

"In Laura'a perspective ... and in the Carlisle's perspective ... over what Jacko's situation represents - I see the intellectual and emotional - the two sides of every issue or problem. And they need each other to succeed and come out whole. Laura needs the Carlisle's
'disinterested' perspective (by that I mean free from emotional entanglement) to guide her clearly through the Changeover, and the Carlisle's need the emotional grounding that Laura can provide to help save Sorry."

This dichotomy seems to me not just two halves of a whole (emotional and intellectual), but it seems to represent a very real-world situation of coalition -- that is, groups of people working together for common ends, but for differing reasons. This is a very adult step for Laura -- one that even many adults never make: fitting your values and goals into a larger picture, respecting the values and goals of others, and being willing and able to find those points in common, and work towards them together. Not just compromise -- it's more active than that; and Laura always works to decide where her priorities lie -- how important her reasons are -- constantly re-evaluating the coalition, to make sure she is taking actions that she can live by.

Nina Lindsay Student--School of Library & Info Studies UW Madison nlindsay at mail.soemadison.wisc.edu
Received on Wed 06 Sep 1995 08:57:00 AM CDT