MovieChat Forums > The Beguiled (1971) Discussion > Question Everything

Question Everything

posted 14 years ago by DanaShelbyChancey
1 reply | jump to latest

I assume McB was lying when he said he was a Quaker, it was just a prudent thing to say at the time.

It makes me wonder if he was even a Yankee soldier at all. Maybe he was just a hoodlum on the run. We have no way of knowing! He could have gotten the uniform off a dead soldier, even one he killed himself! We don't know anything.

Another motive for killing McB was Martha's possible gay feelings for Edwina. It is pretty obvious she had an incestuous relationship with her brother. McB reminded her of him?

[–] Wuchakk 9 years ago

Yes, he was lying about being a Quaker to save his hide. As he was telling Martha about being a peaceable Quaker there are flashbacks to him killing Confederates, etc.

It makes me wonder if he was even a Yankee soldier at all. Maybe he was just a hoodlum on the run. We have no way of knowing! He could have gotten the uniform off a dead soldier, even one he killed himself! We don't know anything.

He was definitely a Union soldier. The flashbacks show him fighting as a Yank and getting wounded.

He could have gotten the uniform off a dead soldier, even one he killed himself!

If this were so, why would he put on a uniform of a Union Soldier while deep in the South? It would be a death sentence or, at least, a ticket to a POW camp.

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