Word: spinster
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...nurse who orders the rebel hero of the asylum lobotomized is intellectually presented as conformity's tool in crushing individualists. The emotional line of the play, however, suggests that the hero's real crime is machismo. He is, in effect, being castrated by a neurotic, sex-starved spinster in an acute fit of penis envy...
...Conformist. While society is being corrupted outside the garden, the self-contained life-style perpetuated by the Finzi-Continis on the inside is rotting at the core. Raised as a bluestocking, Micol quips to Giorgio that she's writing her thesis on Emily Dickenson, "a dried-up spinster like me." Minutes later, in giving him a mock botany lesson, she points to a tree she imagines planted by Lucrezia Borgia. The connotations of that name reveal in her no dried-up spinster, but the malevolence of cruel sexuality. All her dewyeyed clinging to a golden past is merely the weapon...
Some of the more mature passengers also managed to swing, though less overtly. A European blonde in her mid-50s cuddled quietly with five different men on the first five days at sea. A spinster from North America discreetly resumed a four-year-old liaison with a cabin boy. "He might not be an officer," explained one of her friends, "but he is an intelligent cabin boy. And very kind." A few other matrons found comfort with the gaggle of gigolos aboard. Gay liberation was also evident. Punned one ship's officer: "We are carrying both lifeboats and fairies...
...place in Eastwood's shuttered room, but Siegel extracts from the confined space an almost tangible sense of claustrophobic terror. His work with the actors is equally felicitous. Eastwood, working with Siegel for the third time, exudes a cool, threatening sexuality. Elizabeth Hartman is affecting as a young spinster and Geraldine Page provides a haunting portrait of thwarted lust. The young girls are the most remarkable children seen on-screen since Our Mother's House, especially a sultry temptress named Jo Ann Harris and the remarkable Pamelyn Ferdin, who credibly transforms from idolater to avenger...
...spinster's finally going to catch the boy next door...