Subject: (urth) Severian's family

From: Geoff Alex Cohen <gac at cs.duke.edu>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 10:16:55 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

> From: "Kevin McGuire" <kmcguire at itw.com>
> 
> While I'm here, though, could someone clue me in on what pointers 
> there are to the identity of Severian's mother and sister?

I started a rough draft of this, at 
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~gac/Wolfe/family.html.

Overview:  we know Severian has a sister, because Severian/Severa
is a set of names you give to twins.  We know what happens to male
children who are born to prisoners; female children go to the
witches.

So Severian's sister is a witch, of his age.  My guess (and Wolfe
confirmed this in the chat) is Merryn, the Cumaean's companion at
the very end of _Claw_.

Mother:  Well, Ouen names her Katharine at the end of _Citadel_
and says she was given to the torturers (which matches our
theory for Severian's origin).  We do meet one woman in the
Guild's care named Katharine...

Geoff

---

From: m.driussi <m.driussi at genie.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 17:38:00 +0000

Reply:  Item #2453278 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

"Is there a sister in the text?  A father?  A mother?

     "We are told that 'Severian' is a name usually given to one of a
pair of twins.  If there is a sister, she will have been raised in
the Witches' Keep in the Citadel, and she may well make some sort of
appearance.  I have myself gotten nowhere in identifying her, or in
tracing any significance that might attach to her presence in 'The
Book,' though if she does appear I suspect it is on the road to
Thrax" (Clute, Wolfe essay dated 1986, STROKES, p. 164).

"Other relations lurk further back.  Ava, the Pelerine who questions
Severian in the lazaret, asks whether his name was not `one of those
brother sister names . . . Severian and Severa.'  Severian does not
confirm this, any more than he can say whether he has a sister; but
little Severian had a sister Severa, who was in fact his twin.  He
too asked if Severian had a sister.  No question asked twice can be
casual."

[Brief paragraph running through a few candidates.]

     "A more appealing candidate is Merryn, the witch who appears
with the Cumaean atop the home of Apu-Punchau [i.e., on the road to
Thrax]" (Gregory Feeley, "The Evidence of Things Not Shown: Family
Romance in THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN," "The New York Review of Science
Fiction No. 31," March 1991, p. 9).

=mantis=