Ouen and Dorcas and ??

Roy C. Lackey · 06 Dec 2010, 07:35 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 01:35:20 -0600
Subject: (urth) Ouen and Dorcas and ??
References: <AANLkTim_gb+9W=XhR2+4j9_qTTD0oi9F5LGff4MtMjjs at mail.gmail.com>	<F66E3EE3-2334-4DFC-A78F-85A96E0CDABF at liftingfaces.com><002301cb93f6$dcbb6e60$9dce4a0c@rclackey>
	<4CFC5666.10100 at sky.com>
Message-ID: <004001cb9518$27e27f60$b1d04a0c@rclackey>

Jane Delawney quoted and wrote:
> > He had been searching for her body for "forty years".  (SHADOW. chap.
XXII)
> > Ouen is about forty-two.
> >
> I concur. Also, it is deducible from the text (Dorcas remembers going to
> buy clothes for her child, remembers looking after a child and so forth)
> that if Dorcas died in childbirth, as is usually assumed, it was in
> bearing her *second* child, ie. Ouen's sibling.
>
> What I can't remember right now is whether there is much textual
> evidence that Dorcas did in fact die in childbirth. All the old boatman
> tells us is that they'd been married four or five years, then 'Cas died.
> It's entirely possible she died of other natural causes when Ouen was a
> toddler.

It was Ouen who said that she died in childbirth, which is what his father
had told him (CITADEL, XXXVII). But the text is otherwise silent on the
subject of a second child. Ouen knew what his mother looked like from the
picture of her he had, but he was probably too young when she died to have
actually remembered her.

-Roy

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