Lucy Rents the Haunted House, Explained：obstinate

What's really going on

On the surface this is a transaction: will Lucy rent the house nobody keeps? Underneath, it is Lucy choosing a life. She is a young widow with little money and less say in her own affairs, and Gull Cottage is the one thing no one else wants, which makes it the one thing she can claim. Coombe's warnings, meant to protect her, only prove the point: "I never want to see this house again," he says of the place, while she insists on walking back into it. When he finally calls her "the most obstinate young woman I have ever met," he thinks he is insulting her; she answers, "I've always wanted to be considered obstinate." Her defiance is not recklessness so much as a first assertion of will: she is not taking the house in spite of the ghost, she is taking it because the ghost is the only thing standing in her way.

Theme

このチャプターで学べること

• Fear and delight trade places in one word: fascinating.
• Refusing to be relied on is its own quiet rebellion.
• A sailor's phrase slips out and gives a secret away.
• Coombe loses every round and keeps his manners.

発音のポイント

• driving me — Link driving and me into drai-ving-mi.
• Rely on you — Run Rely on you together as ri-lai-on-yuh.
• soap and water — And weakens to n, so soap and water runs as one.
• Ain't noticed — The final t in Ain't is usually dropped.