浅谈《荆棘鸟》中西方女性对爱情的信仰

浅谈《荆棘鸟》中西方女性对爱情的信仰[Abstract] This paper attempts to explore the novel The Thorn Birds, which shows the different values of love between women and men around the Clearys. The goal of exploring it is not only to state that women‟s faith is love, while men‟s faith is anything but love, but also to set off the heroine—Meggie, who longs for love and strives perseveringly for love in all her life. Although Meggie suffers a lot when searching for her faith, she always keeps loyal to love. What‟s more, in order to create the beautiful and moving voice of her love, she would rather offer her life as the greatest sacrifice. The paper also aims at tracing back to Western women‟s faith by describing the heroines‟ love stories in some great works written by some famous women novelists. Compared with other heroines‟ attitudes and behaviors to their faith, Meggie is stronger, braver, purer and nobler to her faith, for she enriches love with endless vivid vigor and color. She is a perfect woman. However , although Meggie dedicates her life to love, what she gains is just a tragedy; although the Western women go all out for their faith, they are always deeply hurt by the cost of great pain. Therefore, this topic subtly delineates the fact that the women‟s voice for love is st ill too faint. No matter how wonderful voice they create, they are still incapable of changing men‟s non-love faith and overcoming the unequal values of traditional society. This is an unavoidable tragedy not only to Meggie and the Western women, but also to all women in the world from ancient times. They get temporary happiness from love, but with infinite misery. Their voice is too faint to resist tragedy in love. However, women‟s lofty faith brings them a meaningful and significant life, just like the voice of the thorn birds.[Key Words] women; love; faith; voice; The Thorn Birds【摘要】本文通过对长篇小说《荆棘鸟》的分析，分别描述了以克利里家族为中心的女性与男性不同的爱情价值观,体现了女性视爱情为终生信仰，而男性却常常选择非爱情的信仰，从而衬托出女主人公梅吉对爱情执着的高贵情操。

梅吉始终忠诚于她的爱情，甘愿像荆棘鸟那样成为信仰的献祭，谱写了一曲凄婉动人而又崇高、悲壮的爱情主旋律。

本文从《荆棘鸟》追溯到其西方女性信仰的源头，通过分析早期西方杰出女作家主要作品中女主人公追寻荆棘的历程，展示了西方女性对爱情的信仰，同时更加突出了梅吉集勇气、高洁、坚强、博爱于一身的完美形象。

但是，纵然梅吉为了爱而奉献一生，纵然西方女性为了爱而殚精竭虑，她们最终得到的总是悲剧性的爱情结局；即使最终能够如愿以偿，可在追寻的过程中也付出了沉重的代价。

从中揭示了一个道理：即使女性对信仰的呼喊动听而绝美，她们的声音始终是微弱的：她们改变不了男性的爱情观，也战胜不了社会的传统观念。

她们得到了短暂的幸福，却承受了一生的痛苦。

这不仅仅是梅吉和西方女性的悲剧，也是从古到今全人类女性所无法阻挡的悲剧。

但是不管怎样，梅吉她们这种崇高的信仰让她们作为女性的一生熠熠生辉，就像荆棘鸟的歌声永远震撼人心。

【关键词】女性；爱情；信仰；呼喊；《荆棘鸟》1. IntroductionThere is a saying that literature somehow aims at studying human, which gives a faithful representation of the life and the thought of mankind. What’s more, each works of literature has its own theme，emblem and fascination, which brings the readers endless aftertaste and consideration, including the The Thorn Birds, written by Colleen Mccullough. The enchantment ofthis book first lies in its subject─love and destiny, and its symbol—the thorn bird.There is a legend about a bird, which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the earth.“From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain….”[1]The bird, called the thorn bird, follows an immutable law, namely love, filled with solemn and stirring voice.The book tells readers a story, b eginning in 1915 and ending more than half a century later, “of a singular family, the Clearys, who leave New Zealand to live on vast Australian sheep station, where their triumphs and tragedies are interwoven with the wonder and terror of a land ravaged by cycles of drought, fire and torrential flood. But most of all, it is the story of Meggie, who falls madly in love with a man she can never marry, and of Ralph, a truly beautiful man, whose ambition takes him from outback parish priest to the inner circles of the V atican—but whose love for Meggie Cleary will lead to a passion he cannot control.”[2]It is considered that the writer, Colleen Mccullough, condenses every aspect of life into a brilliant book. By describing the Clearys‟ frustrations of emotional experiences, she tries to show a truth that it‟s necessary to pay an unimaginable cost for the true love and any other magnificent things. Undoubtedly, in the story, Meggie is the most conspicuous thorn bird, whose longest, sharpest spine is Ralph. No matter how difficult and mournful the experience is, and how slim the hope is, she never gives up her faith—being loyal to love and making her love significant. She knows she has chosen a tortuous road, but she would rather devote all her effort to searching for her thorn tree—Ralph, and having her faith glitter.2. Women‟s faith in love in The Thorn Birds“If love is the everlasting theme of literature, then female is also an unfailing topic, for love story can‟t lie in the world without women.”[3] The Thorn Birds tells a penetrative love story between Meggie and Ralph. It also shows the particular love story about the Clearys‟ three female generations, from which the writer portrays four characteristic women who are brave to fight against their fate and social custom for their faith.2.1 Meggie‟s love storyThe story begins with the day of Meggie’s four-year birthday, on which she receives an unexpected present─a pretty doll, from her mother. She, born poor, is an attractive and lovely girl with vivid hair, but she also has a strong personality. When her dear doll is spoilt by her elder brothers, it does not occur to her to seek help; when she is strictly but unequally punished by Sister Agatha in the school, she does not surrender; when her dear brother Frank leaves her, she doesn‟t weep, for “Something in her little sou l was old enough and woman enough to feel the irresistible, stinging joy of being needed”[4].Her self-control is phenomenal and her pride formidable. Besides, she is a quaint mixture of ignorance and morality. She is worth more, but she is not born to be more. Nobody knows what will happen to her, what kind of life she will have, and what sort of fate she will encounter.When she is nine years old, she moves to the vast Australian sheep station─Drogheda from NewZealand with her family, which really changes her fate and brings her a new life. The first time Ralph meets her, she begins to tug at his nonexistent heart, though she is only nine years old while he is already twenty-eight years old. Maybe at the beginning, Meggie just views him as a cherished elder brother, for he is glad to do everything that her mother, her father and her brothers can‟t do for her, and she depends on him so much. As she grows up, her adoration of Father Ralph has turned into an ardent, very girlish crush. But after Mary‟s death, he chooses to obey Mary‟s arrangement to realize his dream and give up Meggie by marrying to the Church. She knows it is forbidden to have a priest as husband or lover, and Ralph can‟t love her as a husband and will never abandon his job as a priest, but she still dreams of him, yearns for him and wants him. However, besides love, she thinks she also needs a husband and babies, and she considers that though she means little to Ralph, there is still some man who loves her before all else. She believes that not all men love some inanimate thing more than they can love a woman. Therefore, she marries Luke, mostly because Luke looks like Ralph so much, which can remind her of Ralph, and will give her children similar in type to those she may have had with Ralph. But she does not love Luke at all, and she is not able to fall in love with him, as she never weakens her deep love for Ralph. Because of the celibacy of priests, she has to go away from Ralph, make her home and her life with another man, and have someone else‟s baby. So she becomes to hate the Church‟s implication that her loving Ralph or his loving her is wrong. What is worse, to her disappointment, Luke does not need her, either. He never respects her feelings. However, after having the daughter of Luke─Justine, she wants to give her daughter a real family. Assuming that the love to Ralph can’t occur, she will have to love her children, and the love she receives will have to come from those children, so she tries forgetting Ralph and persuading herself that Ralph is the past.But when she decides not to waste time dreaming of the man and children she can never have, Ralph comes to find her on Matlock Island, which kindles her hope again, and makes her decide to challenge God for her faith. She can never have Ralph, but there she does get the part of Ralph the Church can never have─she has Ralph’s son Dane, who is as perfect as Ralph. Then she chooses to leave Luke to go back to Drogheda, in order to guard her son. She thinks that she has beaten God. But to her sadness, she has to admit that there is never a woman born who can beat God. That day when Dane tells her that he is going to be a priest, which is as if her death sentence, she has to compromise, crying to her son,“…To the Church thou belongest, to the Church thou shalt be given. Oh, it‟s beautiful, beautiful. God rot God, I say! God the sod! The utmost Enemy of women, that‟s what God is! Everything we seek to do, He seeks to undo!‟ ”[5]She sends her son to Ralph, but she doesn‟t tell him that Dane is his son until Dane‟s death. As Anne, Meggie‟s good friend and former mast er, worries, the gods have not done with her yet. After he is ordained without her mother‟s presence in Rome, Dane decides to come down to the Peloponnese, getting up his courage to meet his mother. Y et before seeing his mother for the last time, he is drowned in Crete, rescuing some women from the sea. Meggie does her best to love Ralph‟s son with the purity of the Blessed Mother herself, but she doesn‟t realize that “The object of her love was struck down in the very fullness of His flower”[6]. After Dane‟s funeral, Ralph consequently dies in her arms. They steal what he has vowed to God, and they have to pay, which is a fatal attack to Meggie. She suffers so much, and it seems that she fails and is unhappy, yet she is really a great and successful woman. In her eyes, the tragedies are a comfort, once the pain dies down, “I did it all to myself, I have no one else to blame. And I cannot regret one single momentof it.” [7] She knows what she wants and tries her best to pursue it, in spite of high expense, a nd her inimitable voice is so plaintive and sacred.2.2 The love stories about the other women in The Thorn BirdsMary is Meggie‟s aunt. She takes possession of a large amount of property and lives in Drogheda, a great pasture. She has been a widow for so many years, but she refuses to marry again. “Not Mary Carson‟s idea of living, to play second fiddle. So she had abjured the flesh, preferring to wield power”[8]. She was not born into money or is not so charming, but besides her genius, the great effort makes her lead a superior life. When she meets Ralph, she has already been an old woman, but she crazily falls in love with him, who has remarkable appearance and uncommon intelligence. On her deathbed, she asserts her true feeling to Ralph,“‘I have loved you. God, how much! Do you think my years automatically preclude it? Well, Father de Bricassart, let me tell you something. Inside this stupid body I’m still young─I still feel, I still want, I still dream, I still kick up my heels and chafe at restrictions like my body. Old age is the bitterest vengeance our vengeful God inflicts upon us.‟ ”[9]She believes that there are no bounds of age in love, but she is clear that Ralph is not likely to love her, who knows that only Meggie is his lover. As a result, she becomes to hate her old age and envy Meggie. Moreover, she can‟t bear Ralph and Meggie to get together, and she also cannot stand others possessing the things she hungers for but could not gain. She has said to Ralph,“‘I’ll be like the Devil, and offer you─Enough said! But never doubt I’ll make you writhe. Y ou’re the most fascinating man I’ve ever met. Y ou throw your beauty in our teeth, contemptuous of our foolishness. But I’ll make you sell yourself like any painted whore.‟ ”[10]Therefore, she chooses to retaliate by separating Ralph from Meggie. The reprisal works after her death, but it really changes the fate of Ralph and Meggie. She knows Ralph very well, and she is sure that if the church inherits her abundant legacy, Ralph will quit Meggie to be the bishop of Catholicism, who can never marry. In the letter given to him, she says,“…Ralph, I love you, so much I would have killed you for not wanting me, except that this is a far better form of reprisal. I‟m not the noble kind; I love you but I want yo u to scream in agony. Because, you see, I know what your decision will be. I know it as surely as if I could be there, watching. Y ou‟ll scream, Ralph, you‟ll know what agony is.‟ ”[11]If she never knows how to do anything else, she actually knows how to make the ones she loves suffer. Just as the sayings go, if you love him, send him to New Y ork, because it is a heaven; if you hate him, send him to New Y ork, because it is a hell. Mary does so and she succeeds finally. Ralph accepts Mary‟s will which makes his dream come true, so he reaches the heaven; Ralph betrays Meggie in order to get the money, which means that there will be an everlasting gulf between them from then on, so he arrives in the hell. If Mary is a thorn bird, Ralph is her sharp spine. However, because of the interlacement of love and hate, she chooses to destroy him.Fiona, Meggie‟s mother, was born in Armstrongs, a passport to colonial aristocracy. She is a very handsome, very fair woman a little under medium height, but rather hard-faced a nd stern. “She was a silent woman, not given to spontaneous conversation. What she thought, no one ever knew, even her husband”[12]. She is a hardworking housewife, but who can imagine that she used to be well-bred girl from an honorable family, and marries the poor hired herdsman─Paddy. It goes without saying that she has contracted a shocking mesalliance. What is worse, she doesn’t love Paddy, but she deeply loves another handsome married man, named Pakeha, with whom she has the son Frank. Fiona thinks the man is everything Paddy isn’t─cultured, sophisticated, verycharming. She loves him to the point of madness, and she thinks she will never love anyone else. However, he is impossible to marry her, though they have a son, so she is forced to marry Paddy by her family. It is a legal marriage but without love. Although Paddy loves her so much and tries his best to make her happy, she never feels happy, and she always keeps silent, which means she never belongs to Paddy until his death. Among the family members, she only loves Frank, or loves Frank more than the rest of others put together, because she loves his father. In the family, Frank is her only spiritual mainstay, but he cannot get along with Paddy well. When Frank manages to drop away from home after the furious quarrel with Paddy,“There had not been a flick of emotion in those soft grey eyes, not hardening nor accusation, hate or sorrow. As if she had simply been waiting for the blow to fall like a condemned dog for the killing bullet, knowing her fate and powerless to avoid it.”[13]She keeps herself folded up with quietness, and a total undemonstrativeness. In fact, Fiona has led an impassible life since she left Frank‟s father and lost her love. When she loses Frank, it means that she loses all her hope.“If the days were long and bitter with a sense of failure, she must bear it in silence…. She was one of those people whose feelings were so intense they became unbearable, unlivable, and her lesson had been a harsh one. For almost twenty-five years she had been crushing emotion out of existence, and she was convinced that in the end persistence would succeed.”[14]Therefore, there is no doubt that Frank‟s father is her longest spine, for her life loses colors without him. The love between her and him is so transient, yet she puts in all her life for it. She knows that Paddy hasn‟t been the man of her choice, but a better man than Paddy never lives. The moment she hears that Paddy died unexpectedly in the fire, she suddenly senses that she loves him, like all of her life. But it is too late for him, and too late for her, as she has wallowed in the former delusion so long and leaves it too late. Finally, she chooses to get herself under that iron control once more, as if she is determined to elongate her periods of darkness until the light shires no more in her lifetime. She is really a very unhappy woman who cannot live with the man she loves, and loses the man who loves her. But on the other hand, she is somewhat lucky, for she has loved someone, and been loved by someone.When Meggie gives birth to Justine, she has gone through death and life, which implies that Justine will be out of the ordinary, will never be Meggie‟s , Luke‟s or anyone else‟s, and will always belong to herself. Compared with her mother and her grandmother, Justine lives in a new age, and is more enlightened than them. What‟s more, she has her own life style that she will not like to have changed by others, which usually cannot be understood by her family. In Drogheda, Dane gets far more emotion from the family, especially their mother than Justine, who thinks she will never love anyone and need other‟s love. But actually she longs for love in her heart of hearts, and the reason she pretends to be indifferent to love is that she is terrified of committing herself to the kind of love which marriage will entail. She only chooses to stand on the stage to make her full emotions release. However, because of her younger brother Dane‟s death, she plunges into a helplessness and distress, which urges her to recognize herself again and to reflect how to treat her life again. Finally, she becomes brave to confront and accept her love and her lover Rainer. Although her final is not a tragedy as her mother‟s, her experience of searching for love also shows that the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.2.3 Meggie‟s noble faithIn the story about The Thorn Birds, women do not want to submit themselves to men‟s authorityand old customs. They do their utmost to strive for their faith. As the thorn birds, their faith is love; as the thorn birds which sing just once in their life, these women love only once in their life. They will not like to change their faith and they appeal to men for understanding and valuing their love. No matter how difficult and painful the experiences will be, they do not care at all. They also believe that the real happiness comes after the extremely suffering experiences. They have the same faith, and love occupies their dream for all their life, but they treat their faith with different attitudes and pursue their love with different behaviors. Meggie does not ruin her faithful lover that she cannot get as Mary does; she does not just keep waiting for her hopeless lover as her mother Fiona does; she is not too timid to accept her lover as her daughter Justine is. Therefore, Mary‟s love is selfish, for she kills her lover‟s love ruthlessly; Fiona‟s love is passive, for she just lives in the past, leading a hopeless and lonely life; Justine‟s love is fainthearted, for she cannot be brave enough to bear the expectation of love. But Meggie pursues her faith indefatigably and sublimates her love to the utmost. Her happiness is based on her anguish. The more sorrowful she is, the happier she will feel. Actually, Meggie‟s pursuit of love is the stro ngest, and her voice is the most moving and tragic.2.4 Meggie‟s influence on the other women in The Thorn BirdsAs a member of the Clearys, Meggie actually affects the other three women unconsciously in her family. When Ralph introduces Meggie to her, Mary instantaneously discerns that Ralph is infatuated with Meggie, which is intolerable to her. She senses that she must lose Ralph to Meggie, but she wants to make sure that Meggie doesn‟t get Ralph, either. So she decides to change her former will, of which Pad dy is the beneficiary. It‟s Meggie that makes her change her lover‟s fate. Meggie is the only girl of Fiona, but Fiona does not envy her or pity her. She thinks that a daughter is just a reminder of the pain and she tries to forget that she has a daughter. However, with little maternal love, Meggie always spreads her angelical love to others. She loves her family, loves her brothers, loves her children, loves her friends, and loves Ralph. What she has done really makes Fiona change her former attitude to Meggie. Her manner toward Meggie becomes tempered with respect and affection. In some way, she admires and adores her daughter for Meggie‟s humanities and noble faith. As Meggie‟s daughter, Justine has a quite different personality from her mother. It‟s difficult for her to accept her mother‟s philosophy. When her mother advises her to marry,“Justine looked scornful. …Not bloody likely! Spend my life wiping snotty noses and cacky bums? Salaaming to some man not half my equal even though he thinks he‟s better? Ho ho ho, not me!‟ ”[15]However, Meggie understands what her daughter really longs for in her inner world. Though she needs Justine after Dane‟s death, she cares Justine‟s happiness more, so she tries her best to persuade Justine to accept Rainer‟s love. It is Meggie that brings Justine a happy life. Meggie leads Mary to change her mind, makes Fiona change her notion, and has Justine envisage her actuality bravely.2.5 The faint voice of MeggieJust as what it says at the end of the novel, “At the very i nstant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.”[16] Meggie creates her own thorn, never stops to count the cost. All she can do is to suffer the pain, and to tell herself that it is well worth it. However , she does not sensethat her voice is not only beautiful but also faint, so do the writer and the readers. Living in the traditional society, dominated by men, Meggie is still unable to persuade the society to attach great importance to her faith, and it is impossible for her to make the society accept her faith. She has challenged God, but she fails, and if she challenges the traditional society, there is no doubt that she will be beaten, too. Because her voice for love is too faint to overstep men‟s authority, and too faint to change the custom of the society, as her aunt and her mother, Meggi e‟s love tragedy is also unavoidable, no matter how much hardship she suffers and how great efforts she makes. Moreover, the more perseveringly she strives for perfection of faith, the more sorrow she will suffer. Meggie‟s peak of poetic perfection shakes up many other women a lot, but to arouse the society‟s reverence for female‟s faith is still beyond her power. Though she does her utmost to raise her voice, it‟s still too faint.3. Men‟s faith in The Thorn BirdsEither in reality or in literature, there are always countless tragedies about love between men and women. It‟s natural for most women to equate love with their valuable life wholeheartedly, while it seems so difficult for men, who welcome love, but can‟t value love as the most important and essential thing in their life. They think that the need of women is a kind of weakness, and they often choose anything but love at a critical moment, which the novel also proves so comprehensively.3.1 Ralph‟s faithNo matter who meet Ralph for the first time, they will never forget his beauty.“the height and perfect proportions of his body, the fine aristocratic features, the way every physical element had been put together with a degree of care about the appearance of the finished product God lavished on few of His creations. From the loose black curls of his head and the startling blue of his eyes to the small, slender hands and feet, he was perfect. ”[17]But there is an aloofness about him, which makes him never be enslaved by his beauty, nor ever will be. Besides, he has barded and subtle mind, outstanding political consciousness and remarkable diplomatic talent. He is brought up from his cradle to be a priest, and he is filled with God. He is sure that no earthly things come between him and his state of mind—not love of a woman, nor love of money. He accepts chastity without finding it difficult to maintain. Truly he will make a magnificent cardinal before meeting Meggie.However, when little Meggie looks up at him with silver-grey eyes of such a lambent purity, like melted jewels, he cannot help falling in love with her at first sight, which becomes to waver in his former determination, vowing to give his life to God. Meggie has moved him unbearably, and he doesn‟t really know why. He views her as a perfec t female, having the gift of acceptance. He has to admit that Meggie fills an empty space in his life, which his God cannot. Therefore, he becomes to battle with his own thoughts. He starts to be puzzled by the confrontation between his divinity and his humanity; he begins to be afflicted with the dispute between his demand for love and his lust for power. However, he just tries his best to deceive himself that Meggie is only the rose of his life, and only an idea, but not a lover. Finally, he accepts Mary‟s will, which relates to the fate of his life and his soul. Between God and Meggie, he chooses the former; between authority and love, he chooses the former. Though he still loves Meggie so much, he chooses to forsake her, selling her for thirteen million pieces of silver. Before saying goodbye, he suggests Meggie search for another man as her husband and love her children, but he is clear that it‟s his punishment. The painof love does not fade, and it seems to grow worse, which makes him unable to be fully pious to God. When he hears that Meggie has married Luke, he is upset, spitting mad. He decides to go to Matlock Island to see her.There he becomes to realize that he is a man, can never be God, and he is made for Meggie. He breaks his vows. He will miss Meggie as long as he lives, but he still will not leave his Church, for he belongs to the Church all along. He really suffers a lot, because of his conflictive mentality. When Meggie has his son—Dane, she does not tell him the truth. He considers that she gives birth to a great son for Luke, which makes him so envious. As Dane is determined to be a priest, Meggie has to send him to Ralph. In the letter, she says to Ralph, “ …I charge you with his well-being, his happiness. What I stole, I give back. It is demanded of me.‟ ”[18] But he still doesn‟t know Dane is his son until Dane‟s accidental death, which wears him down thoroughly.At last, he comes to realize that he is wrong, “Pride, ambition, a certain unscrupulousness. And love for Meggie flowering among them. But the crowing glory of that love he had never known.”[19] Meggie is the mirror in which he is forced to view his mortality, but he never pays attention to it until he dies. Only in death will he find the peace he cannot find here in this life. He hurts Meggie profoundly and loses his excellent son. He loves Meggie deeply, but he can‟t treat love as his faith as Meggie does. He cares God more. So he creates an extreme tragedy for Meggie and himself.3.2 The other men‟s faith in The Thorn BirdsWhen he falls in love with Fiona, Pakeha has been married already, and he has been an important politician. Though Fiona loves him deeply and so does him, “Divorce was out of the question for him. He was one of the first people of his race to attain political greatness”[20]. He has to choose between his people and Fiona. The same as Ralph, he chooses the former, which really stifles Fiona‟s faith and deprives her of her zeal for life.Meggie has eight brothers, two of whom dies young, but none of the ones left alive seem to have any intention of ever getting married. They treat their mother with a tender, absorbed care no amount of indifference on her part can banish. But they are frightened of the power a woman might have over them. They would rather devote all their silent love to the fertile land—Drogheda. “The land brings them men‟s self-confidence and dignity; the land compensate them for the lack of mother‟s love; the land gives them rich nourishment of life.”[21] They love the land deeply, which weakens their intention of marriage.Luke is infatuated with money beyond any other thing, including love, and he thinks he does not need women at all. At heart he loves hard cash far more than what it may eventually buy him. The reason he leaves no stone unturned in his effort to marry Meggie is that he feels like getting her property. As Meggie evaluates him before she leaves,“…Y ou haven‟t any intention of spending it, have you? Y ou want to adore it, like a golden calf. Admit it, Luke, you‟re a miser. And what a n unforgivable idiot you are into the bargain! To treat your wife and daughter the way you wouldn‟t dream of treating a pair of dogs, to ignore their existences, let alone their needs!‟ ”[22]Because of his faith for money, Meggie is only a transient figure in his mind, let alone love.How can a man resist a chance like that to be noble? Just as Ralph chooses the Church, Pakeha chooses his people. Meggie and her mother think they don‟t care. They will take what they can get of the men. They will have their children to love at least. However, if they can‟t keep their lovers, how can they keep their sons? That is just what God cannot allow, so both of them lose their sons。