[Vwoolf] "Jacob's Room": Crux #2

[Stuart N. Clarke]

I do take it (from my hunting on the internet) that there need be nothing exceptional about babies with purple eyelids and therefore the implied argument is that we should not annotate this.  However, applying the principle that “nothing is casual in Woolf”, I would like to be enlightened about whether or not there is some special combination of poverty + babies + purple eyelids!

Stuart

From: Caroline Webb 
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 12:36 AM
To: Danell Jones ; 'Stuart N. Clarke' ; vwoolf at lists.osu.edu 
Subject: RE: [Vwoolf] "Jacob's Room": Crux #2

Could they be purple with cold?  Or is the skin so translucent the veins are showing through?

Caroline

 

From: Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu] On Behalf Of Danell Jones
Sent: Wednesday, 13 May 2015 7:26 AM
To: 'Stuart N. Clarke'; vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] "Jacob's Room": Crux #2

 

For what it’s worth, Thackeray describes Amelia’s eyelids as purple in Vanity Fair.  (Collier and Son, New York, 1917, page 334) and poet Arthur Symons uses it in Amoris Victima, section (Mundi Victima section III, 1902) and The jealousies of a country town. A marriage settlement

by Honoré de Balzac also uses it to M. Sauvager. Even Henry Rider Haggard has a character, Irene, with purple eyelids.

 

I am thinking it was a convention.

 

I love all these mysteries, Stuart!  Thank you for sharing. 

 

From: Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu] On Behalf Of Stuart N. Clarke
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 4:44 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: [Vwoolf] "Jacob's Room": Crux #2

 

 

Towards the end of ch. VIII:

 

“Shawled women carry babies with purple eyelids”

 

Because they are “shawled”, we know the women are poor. David Bradshaw tentatively suggests lupus.  I have looked on the internet, and both purple eyelids and lupus have quite complicated causes/symptoms, from the trivial to the serious, and so I feel are beyond me.

 

I have asked a doctor friend, who says the question is difficult!  “The short answer is that I do not know any exact cause but can hazard a guess that it is a condition seen in debilitated children or children with cyanosis such as blue lips as seen in some chest and heart conditions such as congenital heart disease etc.”

 

Why should poor babies have purple eyelids and, presumably, rich ones not?  Diet?

 

Any answers gratefully received.

 

Stuart
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