Horse Dealer

’s Daughter Essay, Research Paper

Dysfunctional Junkies:

The need to dominate and to be controlled

The Horse Dealers Daughter is a story about dominance and control. By the end of this story the

two main characters have moved very little from the places they started. Their unity serves only to

strengthen and instill their addictions. ?Love honor and obey? were the old words used in marriage

ceremonies when the woman was pledging her vows to a man. This statement conjures up thoughts of

subservience and control, which are good words to describe the way Mabel and Dr. Fergusson?s

marriage would have gone.

The easily over looked aspect of this story is that the events that take place are not influenced by

external factors but internal ones; those being submission and domination. In looking at this plot from a purely external perspective we see a romantic theme; a woman oppressed by three manipulative

siblings released by love when saved by a romantic prince type figure. In looking deeper at what the

imagery and subtle characterization say about these people this we see that their actions are more

complex and egocentric than the Cinderella story that a quick reading might elude to.

From the beginning of the story we see Mabel as the silent servant to her siblings. Lawrence paints

Mabel as a woman being controlled by her brothers. He uses heavy animal imagery in this beginning

portion. He describes the actions of some of the brothers as horse like, and their feelings as

animalistic. But specifically he describes Mabel as a girl that ?would have been good-looking, save for

the impressive fixity of her face, ?bull-dog,? as her brothers called it.? His description of Mabel?s

?bull-dog? face is the linking point to the dog being a representation of her. We see the way the family

talks to her when Joe talks to the dog as he feeds it from the table. ?You won?t get much more bacon,

shall you, you little b—-? The dog faintly and dismally wagged its tail, then lowered its haunches,

circled round, and lay down again.? In the brothers interactions with the dog we receive a wealth of

information about Mabel and Lawrence paints a portrait of the relationship and position she has in the

family. ?-the dog rose uneasily from the hearth-rug and looked at the party at the breakfast-table.

But still they sat on in ineffectual conclave.? ?The dog looked up at him in mournful distrust. From

this we can gather that she is seen as more of a dog than a person, talked at and not to, and like the dog

she has been domesticated over the last 10 years. There are some values that she holds, or at least

held, herself. ?So long as there was money, the girl felt herself established, and brutally proud,

reserved.? In the first part of the story what we are told about her is not very redeeming, and that is

that while she has been controlled and used most of her life her only depth of character holds vanity

over her connection to wealth.

It is this set up that allows us to see what kind of person it is trying to drown herself in the pond.

She is without the ability to go off on her own. Like the domesticated dog she would not be able to fend for herself if turned out into the world. This coupled with the loss of the only other thing in her life that mattered to her, which is the pride the stems from the power and money she was associated with, leads her to attempt suicide. She has nothing, and when faced with the proposition of reinventing herself, she chooses to remove herself creating the final submission which

is to life.

Doctor Fergusson is the antithesis of Mabel in that he is the dominator and the controller. The

doctor is genuinely lonely but what fulfills his need is the physical contact he gets from Mabel.

This egocentric desire correlates with his dominating personality. He does not love but lusts. The

void in his life that she fills is one of physical desire. Fergusson would benefit more from a prostitute than from someone he will have to now have to spend the rest of his life with. His vocation, in a way, gives him this in small doses. It allows him to walk into the houses and lives of the working class. These homes no doubt hold a certain voyeuristic pleasantness for him. Walking into them -being

able to rub up against families and unbridled emotion- may gave him a kind of contact high. ?it excited him, the contact with the rough, strongly-feeling people was a stimulant-? His lust is not for the tender love and bond that people share in marriage but for the passion and emotion he sees there, and his reaction is not cognitive but carnal, ?-applied direct to his nerves.?

As for the control factor, everything about him expresses this standpoint. His job is one of the

most obvious and considerable points of examination. He holds the lives of the people he treats in his

hands. His vocation puts him in a place where every day people have to submit to him. This

relationship is not unlike the one of Mable and him self . The first time that he really notices Mabel is

when he sees her in the graveyard

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