The Katharine maid

Chris Mulder · 28 Oct 2006, 01:10 · from 2006-October.txt.gz

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From: chris_mulder at sbcglobal.net (Chris Mulder)
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2006 18:10:51 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) The Katharine maid
In-Reply-To: <200610271530.46921.ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
Message-ID: <20061028011051.1727.qmail at web82106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Exactly my interpretation, as well. 

  cm

Daniel D Jones <ddjones at riddlemaster.org> wrote:
  I think you're misinterpreting the sentence you quote. You've addressed the 
second half of the sentence but you haven't explained what the first half 
means. Why does the fact that "...the children the torturers take know no 
breasts..." prove that the memory of his suckling is his mother? What does 
the entire sentence mean? I think Severian is saying that it must be his 
mother because if he's suckling at a breast, he hasn't yet been taken by the 
torturers. Once he IS taken, he'll be fed by bottle or equivalent. Thus the 
memory must be of a time before he is taken and the woman suckling him must 
be his mother. That means there's no contradiction in the two passages. 
Catherine bore him (and suckled him) while imprisoned in a cell in the tower. 
At some point after his birth (exactly how long after is unclear, but 
certainly while he was still an infant) she was tortured and killed, and 
Severian was taken by the torturers to be raised as a member of the Guild.

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