Essay Questions

Why is Harriet conflicted about going back to Shrewsbury? What ultimately convinces her to go?

Harriet does not want to go back to Shrewsbury College because she is nervous about the reception she will get there. She wants to attend the Gaudy dinner, because it is traditional, and one of the highlights of the time that she spent there. However, she is nervous because she has recently stood trial for murder and she is not sure if she will be welcomed or vilified.

She wants very much to recapture the love that she had for Shrewsbury whilst she was there, and also to reclaim, in a way, her student experience, which was positive for the most part until her trial. This is what sways her thinking and enables her to make the decision to attend.

How does Annie select her poison pen letter recipients?

Annie is very angry and in her current state of mind hates everybody, and so it is not difficult for her to select a recipient of her poison pen letters; however, the main target is the examiner who outed her husband as an academic fraud. She is not angry with her husband for his fraudulence but with the man who found him out. She wants to make him pay for putting her husband through stress and trauma and she ultimately blames him for her husband's death and the anguish that she is feeling now as a result.

She also deeply resents women who are involved in academia. She is an anachronism because she believes women should confine themselves to domestic service. This is most likely a mixture of envy and also a feeling of insecurity around them. If she cannot blaze a trail through academia then she does not want anyone else to, and so some of the recipients of the letters are women who are doing very well in academia.