Celia Behind Me- Isabel Huggan

… Here and Now: 'sewer caps'= mentioned a few times, it means poklopci za šahte; symbolic
meaning? - what is strange here is that sewer caps are heavy and they pop up. Sewage= the pipes
under the city that contain all the waste of tne city, all the filth of the city, the first associations when
someone mentions sewage is something that is heavy ( made of cast iron, that keeps tha smell and
the dirt invisible underneath), that is filthy. There is all this dirt, that, on the day when she is
emotionally breaking, wants to come up in the city, that is sth that has to be related to her. What
could be the dirt in one's personal life? Unpleasant secrets, hidden feelings ( personal sewage
system), and now all these caps are breaking and what was hidden, surpressed in her threatens to
burst out of her. Is she perhaps guilty of sth? - She thinks she is. The point of the story ( kaže Lopi ;)
) is that this is all in your mind, or then and there is just as here and now, because it is all stored in
our mind, in our memory, in our imagination. If we feel that we are guilty of sth, that can make us
feel real bad, and that's the dirt that we supress.
Could she be guilty of sth? Why is she postponing? - Maybe because she abandoned her mother, in
a way. We could come to this conclusion because of the sub plot of the father and son. The
relationship that was deeply unsatisfactory.
Is it some general immobility of a modern man to deal with that kind of situations, or is it the
personal problem of this woman who didn't have the satisfactory relationship with her mother?

Wuthering Heights: the scene when Heathcliff goes and tells Catherine that it was all her fault, she
is on her death path and instead of making it somehow more pleasant for her to leave this world, he
yells at her that it is her fault she was dying. What sort of love is that? He is angry and frustrated
because he cannot do anything about it or maybe sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. He was
really cruel to Catherine but maybe in that way he helped her go, realizing what she had done to the
both of them. This was true, and we believe that we have to be kind always and that that is the best
way to treat people. And that is what we have in Celia Behind Me.

What was expected of Elizabeth all the time? To behave. To be kind, to be nice to Celia.
Again we have these two plots, the main plot which could be the relationship btw Elizabeth and
Celia, and sub plot which is the relationship btw Elizabeth and everybody else or the way that
everybody else treats Elizabeth, which can of course help us understand the problem that Elizabeth
has.
What do we learn about Celia? She is sick, she is chubby, myopic, slow, overclothed, not very
intelligent, she is not beautiful, head like a melon ( her aunts describe her like that ), big face,
Elizabeth says that her head is fruitlike, rosy, whining, bundled, vulnerable and an awful pain...
This is how all her friends, including Elizabeth, see her. She is molested by her peers.

Why is Elizabeth telling the story? She herself knew, even when she was a child, that if it had not
been for Celia she would be the one who would be mocked, abused, laughed at by her friends. That
actually tells us that she knew really well how Celia felt.
Elizabeth- Sucky ( it always makes her cry), emotional, she is not one of those pretty girls, she also
wears glasses, when her mother threatens that she will spank her, she is really afraid, because she is
so sensitive to what goes on around her and that is why she was actually chosen to be the narrator.
She absolutely understands how Celia feels.

Now that she is a grown up she knows that she was really unfair to Celia, because of her mother she
felt this awful responsibility for Celia. She is like a shadow to her, a heavy burden that she has to
carry all the time when she is out with friends. She feels this rage towards her mother, and hatred
towards Celia. She feels despair because it is so difficult to stop herself from hurting Celia and to
stop other girls from hurting Celia.
She is herself also laughed at, she is also ignored by the girls and teased, and she feels pitty for
Celia and at the same time she feels terrible tension because of the pressure. She is even locked up
by her mother to think things over.

The story is about Elizabeth, about human nature.

We see that her relationship with her peers is not the good one, she seems to be the child that is
easily hurt, easily humiliated by those friends. Whose fault is that? The first formative influence that
we recieve is the influence of our parents, especially our mothers. Her mother is not listening to her,
she is the authority, she is very strict.
What seems to be very important to the mother is the public image. She won't allow her daughter to
ruin it. This seems to be a very strict community.
'straight, straight lines'= in the school, even these little children have to line up, so you cannot have
any originality, you cannot do things your own way, you have to follow this line. This is a very
strict community in religious terms as well ( Mennonites ). This is a small town where children are
not brought up with love, and here the mother should have shown understanding, patience, comfort,
she is not aware that the girl is scared, and the child cannot speak to her.
The problem is when we have the product of that society, then of course, this product, the child will
share the system of values of that society and we see that their formative influences are not really
creative and positive. This is one of the themes in this story, the formative influence of the system
of values created by one community, that little town, upon a child.

What Elizabeth fears most is her public humiliation, because of her mother. What does the mother
threatened her with? Spanking her in public, in front of her friends and pulling her trousers down.
So, there is no fun for her in her childhood. She wants her to be nice to Celia, but she is not aware at
all of the fact that she is not nice to her own daughter. She is absolutely oblivious to this.

The scene on the tunnel: Elizabeth and Celia all alone, Elizabeth is trying to catch up with other
girls who are already out of this dark and frightening place, but Celia behind her is whining. So,
Elizabeth gets really angry because she knew that when they come out toghether, the four girls will
make fun of her, the two of them will be the same, Elizabeth will be identified just as Celia. And
then she hit Celia, bangs her head against the wall. She didn't have self contriol, it comes from the
society, the system of values.

At the end of the story, Celia dies at the age of 17, 'the darkness within herself'= stands for her
ability to be cruel, just like everybody else, even more cruel, because she was ready to kill Celia,
because at that moment, though she was a little girl, she realized that she was capable of murdering
another human being. So, this darkness is the potential that all of us have and it depends on the
circumstances whether we would realize that we possess that darkness.

Elizabeth says that Celia forgave her after some time. Did Celia have a choice? It is a great luxury if
you can keep being angry with somebody. And why is then Elizabeth so angry with Celia, why is
she so unforgiving? What did Celia do to her? Celia is behind Elizabeth as a shadow, and Elizabeth
is angry with that, she is frustrated, and then we realize at the end of the story that she won't forgive
Celia for remined her of thet darkness that she carries within.

What is it that Celia stands for? She is her conscience. She is always there, close to her and
ultimately she makes her be a better person, you are a better person if you grow and you grow if
you learn about yourself. And not simply if you do good things.' Good is as good does'.
Celia is her alter ego.
What is that her mother reminds Elizabeth of, what is thet Elizabeth reminds Celia of? - dead aunts.
'everybody dies'= the presence of Celia and the words of her mother remind her of her own
mortality, although she is just a child and shouldn't be aware of that.
Everybody dies, aunts died, Celia will die, I will die.... Could it be that this story is all about death?
This is what makes her angry with Celia. This is the deeper level where we fear death, and that
whatever reminds us of human frailty somehow makes us angry and we want to destroy it.

So, the darkness is not only the potential for evil that she has, that everybody has, but also for the
fear of death.

Milena:

The main theme is the pressure that Elizabeth here feels, a pressure to fit in and be accepted. How
does she feel?
The pressure to be the member of the group, not to be mocked at. She wants to fit with the other
children, and the weakest one here is Celia because of her illness which influences her personal
characteristics and physical appearance.
How can we explain the hatred that Elizabeth feels towards Celia?
What is the first association for death in the story? Her aunts, their heads crushed like melons.
Nature vs. Nurture. = what happens in your childhood actually determines what kind of person you
are going to be when you grow up, so these events, accidents, the opinions, the attitudes that you
adopt when you are a child actually influence a lot your life as a grown up.
Two related themes in the story: 1st is the pressure to fit in and to be accepted and the fear pressure
to be one of the group and the moment when someone different is seen in the crowd is that he is
mocked at. This initial feeling of insecurity resolves in frustration and ultimately into cruelty and
violence towards the weakest one in the group. And out of this pressure to be accepted, there is this
fear of alienation. 2nd theme is discovering darkness. Discovering darkness in ourselves.

Her mother's approach is good but not for the right reasons, because what she wants to achieve is to
remain her public reputation, and it is not about love and sympathy towards the people who are
different.
What kind of family do we have here? A normal family.
The name of the city is Garten- symbolic 'the garden of Eden' why? Because we talk about
childhood, and this period should be regarded as the time of innocence and we have the street where
these kids live and the church street, the temptation is here seen through the chocolate scene.

The darkness: the difference btw empathy and bullying. This lack of empathy on the part of
Elizabeth is sth that she was not constructed by her parents, the lack of empathy is the result of her
parents' misguidance.

What lesson is she given here about the world of the grown ups on the example of her parents? She
is taught how the problems are not really solved but ignored, she is taught self hatred and hatred,
and she would never forgive Celia because of her event she discovered that dark side of herself.

What kind of darkness does she refer to?- We are not familiar of what we are capable of doing until
we get into this kind of situation.
Is this darkness the fear of death, the fear of dying or is it the fear of alienation, the fear of not
belonging to the group? Or the fear of what you are capable to do? It is an open question.