“Dora, I suspect you are a treasure,” says Charlotte Vale to the nurse.
After her journey Charlotte has returned home. Charlotte must face her mother, but, luckily, Mother has engaged a nurse, Dora. Mother calls out and Charlotte must obey, but in the meantime Dora has already spiked the old woman’s hot toddy.
Her mother’s voice vibrates in familiar ways, but Dora, the outside voice of bemused tolerance, can intervene. She instructs the obedient Charlotte in techniques of conflict deflection and avoidance. She positions herself between mother and daughter, intercepting the echo that the mother still expects to elicit from her adult child. Charlotte offers the echo of independence instead.
from Now, Voyager, 1942, Dir: Irving Rapper; with, in order of utterance, Mary Wickes, Bette Davis and Dame Gladys Cooper; music by Max Steiner.
Please post other echos of women’s independence, for the archive.