What
is your impression of Geraldine in ‘Christabel’? Answer with textual references.
In
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel,
we meet Geraldine, a woman shrouded in mystery.
She comes to young Christabel near the beginning of the poem, and for
the remainder of the story, Coleridge makes it rather difficult to discern
whether she is a benevolent spirit or a malevolent specter. She never makes her intent clear at anytime
during the story and an explanation of why she does the odd incantations in the
poem is never offered by her or the narrator. So this leaves the decision to
the reader as to what would be Geraldine’s ultimate purpose in Christabel.
When she appears to Christabel, Coleridge’s
description of Geraldine paints an innocent picture:
“There she sees a damsel bright,
Drest in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone;
The neck that made the white robe
wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandal’d were,
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her
hair”(58-65).
Geraldine is obviously a beautiful woman, almost angelic in appearance, with her white robe and pale complexion. White has always been the color associated with innocence, and it is also linked to virginity in women. The pale skin and bare feet help lend to the innocent look, as most beautiful women in any poem are attributed with pale skin; the bare feet could be an obscure reference to pregnancy, since it is often believed that women who are pregnant are usually seen barefoot.
