Catherine

Lee Berman · 25 Oct 2011, 13:16 · from 2011-October.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:16:43 -0400
Subject: (urth) Catherine
Message-ID: <SNT123-W428164D8119809FEA9194ACFEC0 at phx.gbl>

>David Stockhoff: Why would the Pelerines have anything to do with the Atrium of Time?

Well, if I understand Larry correctly, Severian is guided to the Last House by a
Pelerine (or Mannea, specifically). The Last House is the same sort of time structure 
as the towers around the Atrium of Time. Perhaps the Pelerines are familiar with such
structures because they inhabit one at the Citadel.

>Who would have allowed Catherine to escape there when all the signs 
>point to her death by beheading?
>Severian knows the Atrium---why does he run there to marry Valeria 
>without once stopping by to see his mother?

Well, as you say later, beheading is not Catherine's sentence, it is Holy Katharine's
(and only because breaking her on the wheel didn't work). But I agree with you that
Catherine, Severian's birth mother is probably dead and that Severian himself knows
this. But there may be some copies of her floating around still. There is a dream
sequence of Thecla as a little girl seeking...someone...among a room of like-looking 
women. Perhaps this dream applies as much to Severian as Thecla.

>larry miller: As to why Severian doesnt visit her after
>becoming Auturch?  Maybe he does and just doesnt write about it.  Or
>if she is indeed the woman dug up by Vodalus shes already dead by this
>point.

I agree most with the last sentence. The appearance Catherine makes toward the very 
end of this story shows her weeping and apparently being escorted to somewhere she
doesn't want to go. She is wearing a pale gown as is the woman in the grave at the
very beginning of the story. I can't believe Wolfe would bookend his masterpiece with
two dark-haired women in pale gowns unless it was meant to be very significant.

>Jeff Wilson: If the beheading isn't part of Catherine's sentence, how are they 
>allowed to do it? It is repeated several times that they may not 
>increase or lessen the penalties of their clients. If it is just a stage 
>beheading, why not have anyone do it?

I'm confused by this question. It is supposed to be a stage act. They can't let just
anyone do it because it is part of the ritual of elevation to journeyman.

>David Stockhoff: I agree about adultery and strangulation by whatever means. But I may 
>be confused about something. As I understand it, you believe Katharine, who 
>was beheaded, to be Catherine, who was strangled. Right?

It is Dave Tallman's theory but I kind of like it (actually I may have distorted his
original version). I think the idea is that every year the maid playing Holy Katharine
is mock-beheaded. Heck if there are multiple journeyman, she might be mock-beheaded a few
times in one night. Is it the same maid every year, or a succession of khaibits? I dunno.

Anyway, when it is Severian's turn he happens to be alone in elevation. 
The sword feels heavy, like a real sword and it encounters some surprise resistance in
the downstroke as though it had to sever a vertebral column rather than just trip a
device to release a wax head.

But of course, the Holy Katharine maid is okay afterwards. So perhaps this mock-beheading
was a real one and the second (after Triskele) example of Severian's resurection powers at
work. The idea is that the real beheading was set up as a test of his power. (if the maid
knew about this she is amazingly confident that Severian will succeed in resurrecting her
"Strike and fear not!".

This theory is a little more shaky than some of the other ones I like, but I still like it.
The woman in the grave is dead before Severian's elevation so I think there is at least one
spare copy of Catherine available to step in after her death. (or maybe Severian's real mother
never played Holy Katharine, only her clone. I dunno.)

Either way, I think Severian's mother was imprisoned in the Citadel, in a cell, nursing Severian
as he remembers, and awaiting her sentence of strangulation. Maybe she played Holy Katharine for
a while, maybe she didn't. But for some reason she escaped, using one of the towers near the 
Atrium of Time and ended up 60 years in the future. At the end of the story, Valeria sends her 
back to face her executionand the time she popped back out from the tower happened to be when our 
story begins. What the relationship between valeria and Catherine is, I don't know. But it is 
something.

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