Are we kind of meant to believe that if you isolate brothers and sisters for 2 years (or slightly less when it began) that they will be incestuous? I felt like the story was somehow actually reinforcing the shallow mindedness of the grandmothers expectations of incest, by actually having incest. I mean if they are incestuous, it makes the grandmother less crazy for thinking that.
Not at all. BTW in the books I think they were in there for 3 years. But regardless, part of it has to do with going through puberty, having raging hormones, and no other members of the opposite sex. But that's just part. And no incest is not hereditary either! You could argue that by expecting Christopher and Cathy to have sex the Grandmother sets up a self fulfilling prophecy. But that wouldn't be a complete explanation either.
But in a book (and by extension a film adaptation) an author can use something like incest as a device with with to convey something else. The series isn't really about incest. It's about the horrible inevitability of dysfunctional family patterns. In spite of all of their efforts to be better than their family Christopher and Corrine escape from Foxworth Hall, build lives under a false name, and raise their children while lying to them about the true nature of their relationship (And that's before Christoper dies and Corrine locks them all in the attic the same thing the Grandmother had done when Christopher Sr.'s mother was pregnant with Corrine. When Christoper, Cathy and Carrie escape the attic, they want to break the cycle. The try that in different ways: Christopher tries to distance himself, Cathy tries for revenge and Carrie commits suicide. But ultimately, after all their struggles Christopher and Cathy leave Foxworth Hall, build lives under a false name, and raise their children while lying about the true nature of their relationship.
Incest is shocking and disturbing- more so when it's romanticized as it is. It's a horrible legacy to pass down from one generation to the next. But it is simply the most memorable (due to its shocking nature) of the legacies passed down through the family: religious fanaticism is another, as is greed, lies, imprisonment and more.
At least in this adaptation, it felt like unfair amounts of this sexual tension was placed on the brother, I don't think even developing teens are this rape-y.
Well that's the way it was in the book too. But it makes sense. Christopher is a couple years older so his sexual awareness/maturity would come before Cathy's. Actually in the book he
does rape Cathy when he hears about her kissing Bart. He gets jealous and forces himself on her. Afterwards Cathy says that he'd taught her how to defend herself against such an attack and so she
could have stopped him if she'd wanted to- but she wanted to have sex with him. She just didn't want the responsibility of the decision.
But in the sequels Cathy tries to have relationships with other men. Christopher never even makes the effort with other girls because he's so hung up on Cathy. Eventually Cathy comes to realize that as screwed up as it may be, Christopher is the love of her life. For Chris it isn't a realization. It's something he's always known. That's just the nature of the characterization.
Also if the grandmother was so sure that the kids would become messed up, why put them all in together? She could have separated the girls and the boys, it's quite a large house so there must be another area to hide someone away.
Well she explains that this is the only room with attic access that's isolated enough so that no one will hear the kids and is not in use.
But really that's sort of the point. By locking them all up together, Corrine and the Grandmother essentially make sure that Christopher and Cathy will follow in their parents footsteps. People don't learn from the mistakes of the past (and in the prequel,
Garden of Shadows, you'll find out what some of those were) and are therefore doomed to repeat them. That's what the series is about. If you look at the titles they all have names associated with plants and flowers:
Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday and the prequel
Garden of Shadows. The gardening metaphor in the titles is apt. Essentially the family is planting the same seeds each generation, half expecting a different flower to grow, and half dreading that it will be the same flower.
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amberm18
11 years ago
Very good explanation, thank you for taking the time to lay it out. It's quite reasonable if as you say, you look at it more like a metaphor of the family trying to raise anyone different. Perhaps not with incest but you see this all the time with children from broken homes, who are determined not to give their children the same hardship, and of course some fail to break the cycle.
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VonFisch
11 years ago
funnygurl, you seem pretty familiar with this book. I always had the impression from Chris Jr. he had a sort of oedipal complex with his mother. He absolutely adored her and seemed as enchanted with her beauty as his father was. When the mother started to drift away and ultimately betray him, it seemed he transferred his feelings for his mother onto Cathy and she was her replacement.
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funnygurl
11 years ago
It's very possible. I think that he definitely had some oedipal tendencies! He didn't want to believe bad things about Corrine until it was pretty much undeniable. He would occasionally get angry at Cathy for criticizing her. It's been a while since I read the book but I believe there's some romantic/sexual tension between the siblings even before Corrine's betrayal becomes undeniable. I think it started after Corrine began to pull away, but that could also be because the timing coincided with teenage hormones for Chris.
But then Cathy was also quite the daddy's girl. Who knows how that would have played out if Chris Sr. had lived? We're told that Chris looks like his father. They have the same name. It's possible that he's a replacement as well.
I think that Chris and Cathy are really their parent's doppelgangers (or do I mean Dollangangers?!) in every sense: They bear a strong physical resemblance. They have the same/similar names. Eventually they also wind up in an incestuous relationship. The doubling continues through out the series. If Chris and Cathy are their parents doubles they could easily be their replacements as well.
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VonFisch
11 years ago
They all seemed to have overly sensual relationships but it seemed especially Chris Jr. and Corrine.
Good point about Cathy and how she may be relating Chris Jr. to her father, too. But it seemed Cathy at least thought it was wrong and that they should try to love other people. And although she may have had different feelings for Chris I think she was in love with Paul and even Bart in many respects. Why was Chris so sure it was Cathy from the start and insisting of their union? That's why I'm wondering if it's a throwback to their mother.
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funnygurl
11 years ago
Well Chris knew it was wrong too. I mean he was a doctor, he understood why it's not a good idea for siblings to marry! But I don't think he ever felt that he was strong enough to overcome that knowledge and love someone else. I don't think that's a throwback to Corrine any more than Cathy's feelings are a throwback to their father. They just deal with those feelings in different ways. Chris accepts them and Cathy runs from them. But remember a lot of the time when Cathy is running, she's thinking that she's not good enough for Chris. That she's going to be with this other guy because Chris deserves someone better.
I don't know how much Cathy really loved Paul and Bart. I mean she did in her own way but she had ulterior motives with both of them, and a biggie was running away from her feelings for Chris (the rationale being "I can't possible be in love with Chris if I'm in love with this other guy. So I must be in love with this other guy!"). But I agree there's more than just that. With Paul there was a large element of gratitude as well: he took them in and helped them when they had no one and no where else to go. With Bart I think it was a mix of attraction and the sadistic pleasure she got from knowing that she was doing something that would hurt Corrine. Chris was the only guy she ever loved for himself: not because of something he could give her, or something she could use him for.
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ednalyn99
11 years ago
Totally agree funnygurl
Cathy's most selfless love was with Chris jr. She really admired and even idolized Chris jr. Didn't she mention it as early as FITA that she wouldn't want to date a guy who didn't measure up to Chris jr?
Julian she stayed for her career. Paul she married out of gratitude and a convenient lover to escape Chris. Also worth noting that she said several times Paul was the man who can help Chris achieve his dream of becoming a doctor and she was willing to do anything so Chris can get his M.D.. Bart Winslow obviously was the most effective tool for the revenge scheme against her mother. I think she was also attracted to him because he belonged to her mother. Cathy had a strange fascination for all things that belonged to her mother. I wouldn't classify it as love at all.
I also agree with the assessment that Cathy exhibited strong Elektra complex tendencies. Her antagonistic jealousy toward her mother and her fascination for Chris jr who is a look-alike of Chris Sr. all point to this. I think there was a scene in Petals on The Wind where they're at the hospital worried sick about Carrie dying yet she is stunned and breathless the moment Chris jr walks in looking like her father. Hmmm. There were other scenes as well with Cathy admiring Chris and always mentioning how much he reminds her of Chris the Elder.
I'm not saying though that Chris and Cathy only loved each other simply because they resembled their favorite parent. But their attachment to the parent of the opposite sex definitely molded their preferred qualities for the ideal man or woman. This on top of their attic imprisonment wherein they acted as parents of the twins, role-playing as each other's prince and princess and lending each other strength in the most trying times, helped erode the normal boundaries that exist between siblings and ultimately led them to fall in love with each other. All these things combined made it difficult for them to form similar bonds or feelings with strangers. Those strangers, Paul, Julian and Bart...and perhaps the other women Chris came into contact with... wouldn't have an inkling of what Chris and Cathy experienced in the attic.
Even if Chris and Cathy managed to marry other people and stayed away from each other, I believe there would always be a unhappiness in those marriages as a large part of them could only be understood by each other.
Their bond is not a simple case of Oedipus and Elektra complex gone awry.
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VonFisch
11 years ago
I appreciate what you're saying but I do see Cathy as written as being more broad minded than Chris and is able to move on from him. I know she admired her brother and thought him more pure hearted (he doesn't have the feelings of vengeance she harbors) and I think you could say that when Paul died, she finally relented to be with him to make him happy. I just think she could have gone either way, finding someone else or going with her brother. I think her brother was a little more obsessed about her than she with him.
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ednalyn99
11 years ago
It's easy to think that when reading Petals on The Wind which was written from Cathy's POV. She was pretty much in denial the whole time in the 2nd novel. LIke another posted said Chris and Cathy had different ways of coping with their feelings.
Chris being a realist accepted it. Cathy ran from it thinking by being with other men, she can over her feelings and also set Chris free.
I don't really think she moved on from Chris even when she was sleeping with other men. Her fascination with Chris doomed those relationships. Julian always claimed there was a man she always loved more and noticed right away the different way she looked at her brother. Even after she was widowed after Julian's death, she didn't go to Paul right away since Chris was around. It was interesting how she kept putting marrying Paul on hold considering that there really was no hindrance to being with him. You'd think if she really loved Paul, she'd give him a chance to explain Amanda's claims before idiotically marrying JUlian. Yet she sabotages her relationship with Paul not once, but twice!
With Bart...during that "relationship" it was Chris who stayed away from Cathy since he couldn't stand what she was doing. Yet even during that relationship, Chris was never far from her thoughts even when Chris physically stayed away.
The third and fourth books pretty much contradict Cathy's denials since you can read about the observations of the other characters about Cathy's actions. JUlian's mother, even her children point it out to her face that her relationships were defined by her love for Chris. Her son Bart jr. told her point blank that she favors elder son Jory more because she sees Chris in Jory. Cathy couldn't deny it.
You also have to wonder about Paul telling Cathy to go to Chris after he dies. I think Paul saw how much Cathy also loved Chris that's why he encouraged her to go to him. If she didn't feel the same way and has the ability to move on, why would Paul point her to Chris when their relationship is wrong and unhealthy even for the kids?
If there was one thing that could rival Cathy's love for Chris...it was her desire for revenge against her mother. Not really the other men who were pretty much her pawns/tools in her scheme one way or the other.
After she was done with her revenge, there was nothing else to divert her passion from Chris. Which is why I think she finally caved and went to him in the end.
Anyway, these are just musings. hehe. When I was younger, I really thought Chris was the only one truly into the relationship. And then when I read it again in my late 20's, and paying more attention to what Cathy does than what Cathy says, I realized how much she was crazy about him, too.
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VonFisch
11 years ago
You've both made some really good points. Truth be told, I haven't read the books in almost three decades. I caught this movie by happenstance, I didn't know it was being made and I'm actually surprised it was made since the first movie was such a bummer. It makes me wonder what ever made them think of this story to put it again to film at this time. When I read the books starting in middle school, I thought it was the most tragic story I had ever read! ;) I am also surprised by how much I've remembered.
So, what I'm getting down to is that I had the same impressions as you about Cathy "when younger", so perhaps, I might have to crack open this series again and see if I have the same impressions about her vs. Chris. However, now that I'm older, I see how really messed up this story is so I don't know if I can take it as seriously as I did when younger so I'll see if I can get through it again! :)
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ednalyn99
11 years ago
For me, Petals On The Wind was the most messed up. haha. I'm really curious as to how Lifetime channel can adapt that story. The incest does get more intense and then there's Cathy and her different men.
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GPJ_Zen
11 years ago
Hi funnygurl, since you seem to be an expert on this story, I will direct this question to you, but any/everyone is welcomed to chime in: Wasn´t the children´s father their mother´s half uncle? And was it not until she was a young adult that she came meet him? Although granted that was incest too, I think it is a far cry from two full siblings who have been raised together. I mean, am I wrong to think it´s a bad comparison to say the kids repeated what their parents did? Furthermore, being that the parents hooking up would´ve taken place around the late 40´s/into the 50´s, in Virginia no less, is it really reasonable to believe that her parents would be so aghast about their romance as to cut them off from the family as the movie tells? Please clarify this for me, and/or share your opinion on my theory. Thanks!
P.S. FYI, I have not read any of the books, just finished watching the Lifetime movies, don´t remember the original FITA since I only watched it once, and that was a very, very long time ago...on VHS! (lol)
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