Finishing the rest of Nightwood, I found many parts that seemed problematic or just hard to understand with everything that has happened with a conclusion that is open to interpretation.

The passage that I choose to focus on specifically is on page 153, where Robin stumbled and “she said seeing a poor wretched beggar of a whore, ‘Giver her some money, all of it!… They are all God-for-saken, and you most of all, because they don’t want you to have your happiness. They don’t want you to drink. Well, here, drink! I give you money and permission! These women- they are all like her, They are all good-they want to save us!” When Robin said this she was very intoxicated and previous to this instance was taking out her anger and drunkenness on Nora, calling her a devil and confirming that they believed that truly. In this passage, Robin refers to a “they,” which I am having trouble understanding who that “they” might be referring to and what the source of all this pent up anger was. With the progression of Nightwood much dialogue from Robin wasn’t included, just descriptions of what others had to say about her, so hearing how outspoken she was at that moment came to a surprise to me.

A combination of her intoxication and her odd behavior of giving all her money to a random homeless woman give some insight to the peculiarity of what she actually said. After reading it over and over again, what I’ve come to understand is that Robin was directing this to the women in her life, but more specifically Nora. She blamed her for taking her back home, away from the bars and the liquor but praised and appreciated her for her how much she cared and took care of her. In this line alone, Robin tried to play victim: saying that she needs permission to live life the way she wants to and to be happy, even though throughout the novel, she does exactly that not taking into consideration any of the people in her life and how much anguish they may have with her actions. The nature of her character at this particular point played a contributing factor in what she had to say because it revealed some truths yet in a discombobulated manner.