MONOGRAPH:

A JUDGEMENT IN STONE

SUBJECT: LANGUAGE I

TEACHER: ELIDA COLELLA

STUDENT: VIRGINIA D. PAGNUTTI

November 30th., 2002

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OUTLINE: “Eunice Parchman killed the Coverlade family because she could not
read or write.”
Differences of life: Are they so significant as to determine whether
someone should live or die?

It is known that even though there are differences in all aspects of life, facts
and people are narrowly linked to one another. We cannot precise how or why the
movement between difference and similitude is produced, but we definitely know that
there is a reason for things to happen. In this story we have a detailed description of
the events and characters, which allows us to think about this topic.
One of the main characters, Eunice Parchman, was an illiterate person. She
was born in a poor family. “From the first her existence was a narrow one. She
seemed one of those people who are destined to spend their lives in the restricted
encompassment of a few streets.”1 We can also see how the social environment helps
to the development of facts. She was separated from her parents and the school she
was attending because of the war, and nobody ever paid attention to her needs. As a
result of this, the only thing that she learned from school was that she couldn’t read or
write, and from her mother how “to tell right from wrong.”2 She used to walk a lot
and “these walks were her education.”3 So, she mainly learned bad habits from the
streets, as blackmailing, which became for her a common way to earn money and
survive.
The Coverlades were discrete people who took active part in the social life of
the neighborhood. In contrast to Eunice, they were peculiarly literate. George had a
degree in philosophy and was an important businessman. He married Jacqueline
about eight years after his wife’s death. They lived in a beautiful country house with
Melinda, George’s youngest daughter, who was a joyful 20 year-old girl and Giles,
Jacqueline’s son, who was an intellectual and mystic teenager.
On the other hand we meet Joan Smith, Eunice’s companion and partner, who
becomes a religious fanatic and finally gets mad and kills in the name of God. “For
the first sixteen years of her life she led an existence that any psychologist would
have seen as promising to result in a well-adjusted, worthy and responsible member
of society.”4 She had been loved and encouraged by her parents, and had three elder
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brothers who were very fond of their little sister. The war was on and she was also
separated from her parents, and from that time onwards it seems that she started to
follow the wrong way. She exhausted her sexual capacities and had a promiscuous
life until she married Norman Smith, a simple man who fell deeply in love with her.
He had no idea on how she had earned her living, and believed her when she told him
that she had been a freelance secretary.
From the very beginning Eunice’s life was complete at the Coverlades’.
Lowfield Hall might have been Buckingham Palace to her, and the best of all was the
kitchen: “Aesthetic appreciation for her was directed to only one end – domestic
objects. To Eunice a refrigerator was beautiful while a flower was just a flower...”5
She also had a comfortable room with the most important object she had always
wanted to have but never been able to buy or hire: a television set.
She had been hired as a housekeeper but Jacqueline just really wanted
someone to help her with the tasks of the house. Eunice was obedient, had a fantastic
manual dexterity, and did her work not only neatly but also quickly. So, she came
across very well to Jacqueline and even her lack of experience, she succeeded.
They did their best to make her feel comfortable, and specially Melinda tried
to approach her in a friendly way. But they didn’t receive from Eunice more than her
usual stoniness, and George was the first to notice it but at that moment he said
nothing because Jacqueline was very pleased with her work.
There were many incidents during the nine months that she lived with the
Coverlades, and most of them were related to her illiteracy. To Eunice the written
word was her biggest enemy. She was always trying to avoid seeing the books that
were all around the house, and if Eunice found somebody reading one she thought
that he or she was making fun of her.
It was when the Coverlades went on holiday and Eunice’s TV set broke, that
she met Joan in the store that she and Norman ran at the village. Joan immediately
showed her interest on Eunice, as she was her best opportunity to get information
about the Coverlades, and Eunice thought that their relationship would be of help
with regard to the written word.

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 Several conflicts emerged from the relationship between the Coverlades and
Eunice and Joan on the other side. This undesirable situation ended when George
decided to fire Eunice for blackmailing Melinda, because she had discovered her
illiteracy, and to sue the Smiths for having tampered his mail.
Georges’s action resulted in a tragic end for his family and himself, as they
were killed by both women on a Sunday evening while they were watching opera on
television. Though it was not a murder that had been premeditated, the tension
between the victims and the killers grew throughout the novel, and got its highest
point on the last night that Eunice was supposed to spend at Lowfield Hall. She
invited Joan to have a tea as she noticed her very excited after the religious meeting at
the Epiphany Temple. But Joan wasn’t only excited, by that time she was completely
mad and Eunice in her coldness and ignorance was, in some way, conduced by her to
kill those who represented the greatest threat for her happiness.
The writer shows how differences in life, like wealth and poverty, literacy and
illiteracy, discretion and indiscretion, affect the relationship among the characters. In
general, when there is a difference, there is also an attraction. May be this is produced
because of some personal convenience, as in the case of Eunice and Joan, or probably
if we pretend others to change their way of thinking or doing things just to find a
reflection of ourselves, or just because we believe that we are doing good, as
Melinda in her innocence thought of Eunice. If we realize that each person is
exclusive, and there are lots of facts that make things be like they are, then we should
learn how to tolerate these differences and to complement each other. But
unfortunately this is not always possible, and those natural differences turn into a
world of differences that may hurt to one another. These could be emotional or
physical harms, but finally all the parts involved are affected by them.

Bibliography: “A Judgement in Stone” by Ruth Rendell: (1) page 30; (2)(3) page 33; (4) page 72; (5)
page 38.

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