1. Lucy Gayheart: Analysis of Major Characters.
- Author
-
Cassidy, Thomas J.
- Abstract
Lucy Gayheart, a music student in Chicago. She is a bright, willful, and talented young pianist, the darling of her home-town of Haverford, Nebraska. She is particularly prized by her father, Jacob Gayheart, and the heir to the local bank, Howard Gordon. While studying music under her mentor, Paul Auerbach, Lucy attends a recital by Clement Sebastian, a concert singer. Later, while working with Clement, Lucy falls in love with him, as both a man and an artist. Pleased and surprised to learn that he shares her feelings, although he has a wife in England, she lies to Howard Gordon that she and Sebastian have been lovers. In late spring, Sebastian leaves for a tour of Europe, and Lucy is devastated in September to hear that he has died in a boating accident. She returns to Haverford depressed, amid much curiosity and gossip, but tells no one her tale. Barely tolerated by her older sister, Pauline Gayheart, she is completely scorned by Howard Gordon, who has married another woman. After an argument with Pauline in the middle of winter, she walks down to an old ice-skating area, unaware that while she was away in Chicago, the riverbed shifted and that the area is no longer safe for skating. The ice breaks, she falls in, her feet get caught on a log, and she drowns.
- Published
- 2021