Chad, the main character of this book is a very wicked, cruel man, very bad indeed - the type of man women must pray they never come across with socially in their lives.
Even before he kills the woman he marries for her money (Vestal) in such a cruel, evil manner, his uncharitable comments about her (a woman who turned a nobody into a very comfortable man after she married him) makes one cringe. Here are some samples:
"I could see her emaciated chest and her flat unformed bosom...I shifted my eyes. There was no beauty there, just something dried up and unlovely"
"Did this wizened, flat chested ugly little creature really imagine I should want to peep at her. Did she imagine I was that hard up for women?"
"Her naked desire shocked me. She was such a wizened, ugly little thing...I could not imagine her having those kind of feelings...not this skinny, brittle bundle of bones... it did not even seem decent "
"They say love can make a woman look beautiful. Well nothing could make Vestal look beautiful, but at that moment...she at least managed not to look ugly, and that was quite an achievement"
As we say in Africa, "when we think or talk about someone, we should remember it is in respect of a human being, not an animal". Chad is worse than a beast with his approach to a woman he married for her money, without any iota of respect or affection for her. Yet she loves him with all her heart; and she is brutally killed by him in the end.
The only good thing about this book is that Chad is somewhat punished in the end too. But his end still seems inadequate for such a bad, bad man who brutally kills three people!!
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Lupna Avery
