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Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

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Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby Janet » May 15th, 2006, 3:39 pm

A question was raised at our CSL Society meeting last night about Grace Ironwood in THS. What do we really know about her? She is the most anonymous character at St. Anne's. There seems to be some shameful circumstance connected with the way she came to be at St Anne's and she is not with the other women when they are trying on their robes.

It seemed to us that the best way to understand Grace was in her parallel relationship with Fairy Hardcastle. They both have those hard last names--Hard Castle/Iron Wood. They both seem to be masculine women. Stanley has mentioned elsewhere on the forum the contrast in the way that Lewis describes their seated positions. They seem to be in similar positions in relationship to their respective directors. Grace is a healer while Fairy enjoys inflicting pain.

WRT their first names, Grace's is, of course, obvious, I think Fairy bears some looking into. Lewis's idea of a fairy would not be a Tinkerbell type of creature, but being whose interests and agendas are just not the same as those of humans. They are tricky and frequently not to be trusted.

We were wondering if perhaps they were subject to the same temptations and if Grace's strength came from bringing those temptations to the cross (iron and wood being medieval references to the cross) and subduing them.

AMDG,
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Re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby Stanley Anderson » May 15th, 2006, 6:42 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby bekados » May 15th, 2006, 7:40 pm

Diamonds on the soles of my shoes...

No harm in him: only needs a smack or so.
C.S. Lewis' first impression of Tolkien
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re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby David » May 16th, 2006, 2:49 am

The way, the weather, the terrain, the discipline, the leadership. --Sun Tzu
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re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby The Pfifltrigg » May 16th, 2006, 3:15 am

False ideas may be refuted indeed by argument, but by true ideas alone are they expelled. — Apologia Pro Vita Sua: Cardinal Newman
Freedom lost and then regained bites with deeper fangs than freedom never in danger. — Cicero
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. — Ray Bradbury
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby Stanley Anderson » May 16th, 2006, 3:15 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby Monica » May 16th, 2006, 5:16 pm

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re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby The Pfifltrigg » May 18th, 2006, 12:05 am

False ideas may be refuted indeed by argument, but by true ideas alone are they expelled. — Apologia Pro Vita Sua: Cardinal Newman
Freedom lost and then regained bites with deeper fangs than freedom never in danger. — Cicero
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. — Ray Bradbury
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re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby jo » May 30th, 2006, 11:22 am

"I saw it begin,” said the Lord Digory. “I did not think I would live to see it die"

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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby Stanley Anderson » May 30th, 2006, 1:13 pm

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re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby jo » May 30th, 2006, 1:18 pm

"I saw it begin,” said the Lord Digory. “I did not think I would live to see it die"

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re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby The Pfifltrigg » May 31st, 2006, 1:20 am

Fairy Hardcastle? Tall and thin? No, that'd be Grace Ironwood. "Miss Hardcastle", on the other hand: A body like Rosie O'Donnell, a face like Janet Reno, hair like Hillary Clinton's (but the color of John Kerry's), dressed in one of those "French Maid" outfits and some leather (including her black "Police Cap"), with a shrivelled long cheroot and garish make-up and one fat too-bare leg over the arm of the chair she is slumped in and looking down her nose at poor Mr. Studdock.

Like Jack said, at the same time "rankly sexed, but wholly unattractive". A big fat butch, in other words.
False ideas may be refuted indeed by argument, but by true ideas alone are they expelled. — Apologia Pro Vita Sua: Cardinal Newman
Freedom lost and then regained bites with deeper fangs than freedom never in danger. — Cicero
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. — Ray Bradbury
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re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby Rosie Cotton » June 1st, 2006, 2:38 am

Eeeeeuuuuwwwww! I don't know if I should thank you for clarifying that!
... and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.
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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby Korora » June 4th, 2006, 2:09 am

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Re: re: Fairy Hardcastle/Grace Ironwood

Postby Stanley Anderson » June 4th, 2006, 1:57 pm

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