Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard G
But who's she winking to Matt? She's not there. It's the barman reporting her speech (and if he's in on it he doesn't need a nod or a wink.)
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She'd be winking at whoever she was talking to -- and she must have been talking to someone when she said this, even if we're not told who. Perhaps she said this to the barman, or perhaps to the whole pub or village, or to visiting tourists or to the local newspaper. Maybe she says it to everyone. "So says" might imply that its something she's said it more than once. Anyway, if the barman's reporting her speech, he can also report her actions and tell us that she'd said it with a wink or a grin or laugh or whatever. I don't see the problem with that.
And even if the barman is in on it and the speech he's reporting was addressed to a co-sacrificer -- neither of which we are told by the poem -- she might still wink or smile or laugh, making a joke to those in the know. And this is also the case if the barman, or whoever she is addressing, already knows what happened to Mr T, but wasn't in on it.
Anyway, I did pick up on the wordplay on "sacrifice" without an additional clue to flag it up, and hence that Mr T's death was misattributed to the Barghest, but I don't know if anyone else did. Hence the suggestion to flag up that there was wordplay.
The poem didn't give me the impression that the barman et al were involved in the killing. I'd read that last stanza to mean that she'd offed her husband herself, either by ensuring he was killed by the monster, or by killing/sacrificing him herself and making it look like the monster had done it. To me, Mrs T seemed the obvious suspect. People aren't often murdered by their village for being boring (I'm not saying they shouldn't be, mind!). Whereas spouses kill each other all the time. And since it's been established that he's boring and goes on a bit, I could see how she might be happier without him. (After all, she'd be the one most on the receiving end of this). And since it's ultimately Mrs T, and not the barman directly, from whom we learn that Mr T's death was not at the hands (teeth?) of the barghest, it tends to seem like the barman may be learning it from her too. So that's how I read it anyway.
I do see that if we already knew the whole village (or a chunk of it) did the sacrificing, then Mrs T saying what she said does add something, but I think the issue here is that we don't know this. I don't know that any of your readers here so far have clocked this, anyway. I'd say maybe you're wanting that last stanza to do more work than it realistically can.
best,
Matt
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