LADY VIOLET BRIDGERTON
ANTHONY BRIDGERTON
LADY VIOLET’S SON
SIENA ROSSO
BRIDGERTON/IN A NUTSHELL/THE DEEP, BUT ”TOUGH” LOVE
OF LADY VIOLET FOR HER SON ANTHONY
In her analysis over the relationship between Lady Violet and her
son Anthony, writer and historian Astrid Essed states, that the relationship
was characterized by a deep love for her son, yet also stern and merciless.
That was not due to a lack of love, but due to a number of causes.
Violet’s unresolved grief after the death of her husband, which made her
blind to Anthony’s emotional needs and feelings [he had become Viscount at
the young age of 18, after his father’s sudden death]
As a strong willed woman, Violet couldn’t stand the fact, that her son also became the Head of the Family, managing the Estate as the legal guardian of his siblings, but also his mother. She couldn’t stand her own child being her
legal guardian.
Further she was afraid that he, being an unexperienced Viscount, made mistakes, since only a little mistake could lead to social death in the Regency Ton, ruining the marriage prospects of her daughters.
So she scolded him mercilessly, consistently pointing him on his duties and [unintentionally] cruelly reminding him of the fact that his father would do much better.
She also lashed mercilessly at him, when having an affair with an opera singer
Siena Rosso, since opera singers were considered immoral women and a
marriage between an aristocrat and an opera singer would cause a major
scandal. She forced him to end the relationship, but he went again and
again to Siena. And when the relationship was finally over, Anthony was heartbroken and the relationship with his mother deteriorated.
Only when she finally saw her own harshness and offered her tearful apologies to Anthony, wisely advised by her best friend Lady Danbury, their relationship healed and they could be mother and son again, instead of Dowager Viscountess and Viscount.
ASTRID ESSED
AI
THE ROLE OF LADY DANBURY
[FICTION]
The Dialogue: The Mirror of Truth
Lady Danbury: (leaning on her cane, watching Anthony as he surveys the room, tense and joyless) “Look at him, Violet. He does not wear that title as an ornament, but as a shroud. He is not yet thirty, and already he is an old man.”
Violet: (sighing, her hands nervously clasped) “He is doing his duty, Agatha. Since Edmund passed, it is all he has ever known. I taught him that family comes first. That is what a Viscount does.”
Lady Danbury: (turning sharply toward her) “No, that is what a statue does. You have filled him so full of ‘duty’ that there is no room left for a heartbeat. Do you truly believe Edmund would have wanted this? For his son to become a machine built only to avert scandal?”
Violet: (voice trembling) “I am only trying to protect him! The world is harsh, Agatha. One misstep and the girls are ruined. I could not allow him to lose himself to… to whims.” (She thinks of Siena, though she does not speak her name).
Lady Danbury: “Whims? Violet, you know as well as I do that it was no whim. It was his life. And you slammed the door and threw away the key. You are so terrified of a scandal that you are willing to bury your son emotionally.”
Violet: (looking away, stung) “I… I only wanted him to be safe.”
Lady Danbury: (softening her tone slightly, yet remaining piercing) “Safety is a cold mistress. Look at him. He hates the world you have built for him. If you do not give him permission to be human again—to love, to err, to feel—then you will lose him forever. Not to a scandal, but to bitterness.”
Violet: (after a long silence, tears welling in her eyes) “What am I to do, then? He no longer listens to me. He sees me only as an advisor… or an adversary.”
Lady Danbury: “Stop addressing the Viscount. Speak to your son. Acknowledge the damage you have wrought, Violet. It is the only way to tear down the wall between you. Be the mother, not the matriarch.”