artifactualCavalier

While the layers of resentment Rose has towards Mom is insane and chunks of it is indeed projection, it’s also not particularly unfounded. Let’s look at how Jaspers’ death was handled as an example, which is likely a foundational moment of where these feelings stem from.

Here, Rose outright calls Jaspers’ resting place a “mockery.” And frankly, it kinda is!! Even though it’s miscommunication and misreading of intention, the whole tailored suit and mausoleum and funeral procession can be totally read as Mom not taking Rose’s very real pain (very real pain that Rose continually tries to ignore into adolescence) about the death of her cat seriously.  The whole thing is like. Camp, to tbh honest. And the irony of it all is that what’s actually happening is that Mom takes Rose’s pain to cartoonish levels of seriousness which loops back around to being utterly unserious. It reduces Rose’s grief into a game, a play at what a funeral “should” be. Why wouldn't that breed resentment!!

I remember being a little girl with my dolls and I were to ask my dad to play with me, he would get so SILLY with it. He never took how I wanted to play seriously, completely warping my intentions with it. As a terminally serious child, this would upset and frustrate me. It made me not want to play with him! I’m assuming that Rose was a terminally serious child, too. However, the difference between me and her is that my dad didn’t take what I wanted to do seriously while Mom Lalonde takes it too seriously. And of course Rose’s circumstances are far more grave given the context, but the point is that it’s upsetting for a child's wants/needs to be twisted into a whole different game. Or maybe it was never a game at all! Her resentment is understandable, especially given this is possibly one of, if not her FIRST brush with death.

In Act 3, we find out that the circumstances surrounding Jaspers’ death: he suddenly disappears, then washes ashore weeks later, having drowned. This would be shocking for anyone, but especially a child. This is a foundational part of Rose’s own anxieties surrounding water, which manifest  the geography of LOLAR. 

It’s easy to imagine Little Rose asking her Mom if they could have a funeral for her cat, but this ends up getting blown out of proportion. Just like every other thing Mom tries to indulge her with. Like the bronzed vacuum, like the 15,000 dollar frame for her drawing, like Maplehoof. Even if it stems out of a place from love, it’s too easy for her to read it as ultimately insincere

I apologize it has been a Very Long Time since I've recorded anything and posted it on here but I felt compelled to attempt a little dub of this wonderful comic