"Mantel of a Servant"

        Lucy has tried to whole book to separate herself from her past just by doing things such as traveling across the world to get away from her family and  not reading the letters from her mother. I thought it was very important when Lucy says, "I was a young woman from the fringes of the world, and when I left my home I had around my shoulders the mantle of a servant" (p 95). This is another feeling of entrapment that Lucy is feeling by her job, it has put her in another place that has certain expectations and stereotypes. In context of the paintings by Gaugin I could not help but imagine what would the "mantel of a servant" look like in one of his paintings. I think it would look like the cover art on our edition of Lucy. 

Firstly, I think Gaugin looks at and represents freedom in Tahiti as a woman's ability to be uncovered while the woman who wish to be covered look uncertain. As I look at the cover art the woman is uncovered but still looks uncertain and has her arms positioned so that it look like she is trying to cover up. This can be represented as Lucy is trying to shed her past and the "mantel of a servant" but the uncertainty in her face is the question of how and what the outcome will be. Lucy does not know who she will be with true freedom to be herself and that would be a scary thing to realize. Who are we without are roles and who is underneath our everyday actions?