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Clark
Sylvia is Clark and Carla’s neighbor. Her husband Leon died recently, and Sylvia has just returned from a vacation to Greece with her friends. Leon was significantly older than Sylvia, but Sylvia is older than Clark and Carla. She is a professor of botany at a nearby university. Sylvia develops a fondness for Carla and enjoys having her over to help with housework. Sylvia appreciates Carla’s youthful and positive energy, especially in contrast to Sylvia’s similarly aged university students, who she finds annoying. Sylvia tries to help Carla when she learns of Clark’s mistreatment, but Sylvia doesn’t understand the depth or severity of Carla’s entrapment in the abusive relationship. Sylvia’s own marriage was healthy, and she thinks of her husband fondly in the aftermath of his death. Sylvia fears Clark when he shows up to her house in the middle of the night but softens toward him after Flora appears. At the end of the story, Sylvia writes a letter to Carla which unintentionally breaks the news that Flora returned. Sylvia is sympathetic to both Carla and Clark in the end, as she is oblivious to Clark’s true nature and motives.
Sylvia Jamieson Quotes in Runaway
The Runaway quotes below are all either spoken by Sylvia Jamieson or refer to Sylvia Jamieson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Runaway
Quotes
It was almost a relief, though, to feel the single pain of missing Flora, of missing Flora perhaps forever, compared to the mess she had got into concerning Mrs. Jamieson, and her seesaw misery with Clark. At least Flora’s leaving was not on account of anything she—Carla—had done wrong.
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“It’s said to represent a racehorse,” Sylvia said. “Making that final spurt, the last effort in a race. The rider, too, the boy, you can see he’s urging the horse on to the limit of its strength.”
She did not mention that the boy had made her think of Carla, and she could not now have said why. He was only about ten or eleven years old. Maybe the strength and grace of the arm that must have held the reins, or the wrinkles in his childish forehead, the absorption and the pure effort there was in some way like Carla cleaning the big windows last spring.
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Her feet seemed now to be at some enormous distance from her body, Her knees, in the unfamiliar crisp pants, were weighted with irons. She was sinking to the ground like a stricken horse who will never get up.
The fog had thickened, taken on a separate shape, transformed itself into something spiky and radiant. First a live dandelion ball, tumbling forward, then condensing itself into an unearthly sort of animal, pure white, hell-bent, something like a giant unicorn, rushing at them.
“Jesus Christ,” Clark said softly and devoutly.
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“Goats are unpredictable,” Clark said. “They can seem tame but they’re not really. Not after they grow up.”
“Is she grown-up? She looks so small.”
“She’s big as she’s ever going to get.”
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A skull that she could hold like a teacup in one hand. Knowledge in one hand.
Or perhaps not. Nothing there.
Other things could have happened. He could have chased Flora away. Or tied her in the back of the truck and driven some distance and set her loose. Taken her back to the place they’d got her from. Not to have her around, reminding them.
She might be free.
The days passed and Carla didn’t go near that place. She held out against the temptation.
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Sylvia Jamieson Quotes in Runaway
The Runaway quotes below are all either spoken by Sylvia Jamieson or refer to Sylvia Jamieson. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Runaway
Quotes
It was almost a relief, though, to feel the single pain of missing Flora, of missing Flora perhaps forever, compared to the mess she had got into concerning Mrs. Jamieson, and her seesaw misery with Clark. At least Flora’s leaving was not on account of anything she—Carla—had done wrong.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“It’s said to represent a racehorse,” Sylvia said. “Making that final spurt, the last effort in a race. The rider, too, the boy, you can see he’s urging the horse on to the limit of its strength.”
She did not mention that the boy had made her think of Carla, and she could not now have said why. He was only about ten or eleven years old. Maybe the strength and grace of the arm that must have held the reins, or the wrinkles in his childish forehead, the absorption and the pure effort there was in some way like Carla cleaning the big windows last spring.
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Page Number and Citation:
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Her feet seemed now to be at some enormous distance from her body, Her knees, in the unfamiliar crisp pants, were weighted with irons. She was sinking to the ground like a stricken horse who will never get up.
The fog had thickened, taken on a separate shape, transformed itself into something spiky and radiant. First a live dandelion ball, tumbling forward, then condensing itself into an unearthly sort of animal, pure white, hell-bent, something like a giant unicorn, rushing at them.
“Jesus Christ,” Clark said softly and devoutly.
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“Goats are unpredictable,” Clark said. “They can seem tame but they’re not really. Not after they grow up.”
“Is she grown-up? She looks so small.”
“She’s big as she’s ever going to get.”
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A skull that she could hold like a teacup in one hand. Knowledge in one hand.
Or perhaps not. Nothing there.
Other things could have happened. He could have chased Flora away. Or tied her in the back of the truck and driven some distance and set her loose. Taken her back to the place they’d got her from. Not to have her around, reminding them.
She might be free.
The days passed and Carla didn’t go near that place. She held out against the temptation.
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