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What makes this worse is that it is Valancy’s own feelings for Snaith that imprison her. She claims: “She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday she had been all her own. Now she was this man’s. Yet he had done nothing — said nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn’t matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him.” 48 Not only is Valancy enslaved by her feelings, she does not wish to be free; she is subordinate to Snaith. While such subjugation might be acceptable to Valancy while she believes she has only a short time to live, it raises a strong sense of conflict in her when that belief is removed. When Dr.Trent reassures her that her heart is fine, rather than being relieved or happy, Valancy is confused and disturbed. Even “Dr.Trent thought she was odd. Anybody would have thought, from her hopeless eyes and woebegone face, that he had given her a sentence of death instead of life.” 49 In a sense, he has. In Valancy’s and in Montgomery’s minds, marriage is equivalent to death — death of the individual, independence, and freedom. While her relationship with Barney has an end in sight, it is beautiful. With that end taken away, it seems more like a prison sentence. She reports, “She must go on living, longing for it. Everything was spoiled, smirched, defaced. Even that year in the Blue Castle. Even her unashamed love for Barney. It had been beautiful because death waited. Now it was only sordid because death was gone.” 50 At this point Valancy realizes she has assumed the role of all wives — she has committed herself to a life of subjugation to her husband. As a result, the freedom in the real world that she had briefly experienced recedes, while her need for an imaginary realm to escape to once more arises. The Blue Castle ends with Valancy smiling through her tears and reclaiming that mystical space in which Montgomery continues to reside:“She was so happy that her happiness terrified her. But, despite the delights before her … she knew perfectly well that no spot or palace or home in the world could ever possess the sorcery of her Blue Castle.” 51
1. Mary Rubio & Elizabeth Waterston, Eds. Writing a Life: L.M. Montgomery. (Toronto: ECW Press, 1995).
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