I have performed several data mining exercises on Black Maria aka Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones and found a lot of useful material each time I made another pass through the story. There are always more points of interest to be extracted and connections to be made.
Diana Wynne Jones said that Aunt Maria was based on a real person. This might well have been her mother, who by her account was a horrible woman. I have never met anyone quite like Aunt Maria, but some of the actions of her and her circle and the effects that they have on people are very familiar indeed. More and more similarities come to mind each time I go through the book.
Aunt Maria lures the family into a trap
With people such as Aunt Maria it is important to identify them immediately, if possible avoid them completely and if not begin as we mean to go on and let them know where we stand. Unfortunately, we often realise this too late.
The children’s mother says that everyone should be nice to Aunt Maria because she is old and has had a shock: everyone is far too nice to her, and suddenly they have gone too far to start being nasty. The children’s mother knows what she is like, but still agrees to go and stay with her. The children are furious and say there is no obligation as she is only a distant relation by marriage: they have a better grasp of the situation than their mother does. Unfortunately, she is a sucker and a pushover: she would feel guilty and selfish if she didn’t accept the poor lonely old lady’s invitation.
In any case, we are damned if we do obey or confront such people and damned if we don’t. Failure to assert ourselves has serious consequences, but even worse things may follow when we do try to state our positions, protect our interests and defend ourselves against attack.
The boy, Chris, realises soon after arrival that they have been got there under false pretences: Elaine, the second in command in the circle, informs them that they will be responsible not only for cooking and other household tasks but also for bathing, dressing and undressing the apparently helpless old lady. Chris does stand up to Aunt Maria – he makes some very funny remarks - but when he tells her a few home truths and accuses her of murder, she loses her temper and turns him into a wolf.
Aunt Maria springs the trap
After doing this terrible thing, Aunt Maria behaves as though nothing has happened and expects everyone else to do the same. Receiving a terrible injury and being expected to carry on afterwards as if nothing has happened is something I have experienced many times for myself. When one of my sisters was sent away by our step-mother, she was never mentioned and we carried on as normal without her as if she had never existed. The same thing happened when my step-mother left.
Chris’s mother refuses to believe that he has gone missing. She won’t listen to her daughter, Mig, when she tries to tell her; she finds plausible explanations for his absence: he is in another room or has gone out. She just doesn’t see the evidence that Chris is no longer living in the house.
Eventually she says that he stayed behind in London. Aunt Maria has made the children’s mother think this way by laying an injunction, a kind of spell, on her. Worse yet, Mig’s drawing attention to Chris’s absence has only served to reinforce the injunction.
Aunt Maria then plays the “as if” game: she mentions various household activities as if Mig and her mother were staying with her for good. She behaves as if it were a done deal. She completely ignores the essential issues including the fact that they have other commitments, goals and interests and lives of their own to live; she never even mentions the decisions, the sacrifices, the realities and practicalities that would be involved in taking such a drastic step.
This is the most significant, and most painful, part of the book for me. What Aunt Maria does is uncannily similar to what happened to me when I was very young, could not look after my interests and had no one to do this for me. I was too overwhelmed to be able to stand up for myself. I was tricked into consenting because the dice were loaded against me. I went along with someone else’s plans for me, plans that ruined many years of my life.
Mig’s mother goes along with Aunt Maria’s wishes as if the old lady had made a perfectly reasonable request, as if abandoning their old lives, her children’s schools and her job would be a perfectly natural, normal and trivial action to take. She thinks it is the only thing she can do, as the old lady is so helpless on her own – this despite everything she has seen that demonstrates otherwise, despite having said that Aunt Maria could do a lot more for herself if she wanted to and despite her earlier recognition of Aunt Maria’s selfishness and manipulative behaviour, which made her want to kill her.
The children’s mother behaves like someone under an evil spell – which she actually is. She makes many excuses for Aunt Maria’s behaviour and seems resigned to her new life, she can’t altogether be blamed for this but it does make life difficult for her children. Being dependent on someone in this state who leads you to disaster is frightening, dangerous and damaging.
I have seen this kind of scenario enacted many times in a work environment. People who made my warning bells ring were appointed to positions that they were obviously (to me) completely unsuitable for. I am not talking about mere incompetence: there was something sinister at work. These people did a lot of damage and wasted a lot of resources. I used to blame the people who did the recruiting, but came to realise that they had been duped. They just couldn’t see what I could see – or sense.
The painful awakening
Acting on a suggestion from some allies, enemies of Aunt Maria, Mig arranges for her mother to see the ghost who has been appearing in Chris’s room. This breaks the spell. Mig’s mother is in touch with reality again. A huge outburst of anger follows when she thinks of all she has had to do for the evil old woman. People who escape from energy vampires and mind controllers and who come to their senses after being hypnotised into doing things that they would never have considered if they had been in their right minds and a healthy state often react in this way.
Outrage and murderous thoughts after the awakening from the nightmare are common: I have experienced them myself. Mig’s mother is lucky to have been under such a malign enchantment for only a short time, as opposed to being born into it and having to endure it all through her formative years the way I did.
Anger in these circumstances can be beneficial: it can help victims to reach critical mass and escape velocity. It is a justifiable reaction to neglect and ill treatment. It is a sign that people have woken up to the realisation that they have been controlled and enslaved.
Sometimes we get angry when we reach zero tolerance. This too can help us to break out of states of mind that feel like evil spells. In Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore by Sheri S. Tepper, Marianne gets angry and becomes forceful when she has had enough of living in a dream world and of the actions of the murderess Madame Delubovoska. She mentions taking revenge. She gains in stature and her enemies diminish. This blasts her out of the dream world.
There is more material to come: there is still plenty of juice left in the lemon. The third and final part of this article about Black Maria will be published in the near future.
Diana Wynne Jones said that Aunt Maria was based on a real person. This might well have been her mother, who by her account was a horrible woman. I have never met anyone quite like Aunt Maria, but some of the actions of her and her circle and the effects that they have on people are very familiar indeed. More and more similarities come to mind each time I go through the book.
Aunt Maria lures the family into a trap
With people such as Aunt Maria it is important to identify them immediately, if possible avoid them completely and if not begin as we mean to go on and let them know where we stand. Unfortunately, we often realise this too late.
The children’s mother says that everyone should be nice to Aunt Maria because she is old and has had a shock: everyone is far too nice to her, and suddenly they have gone too far to start being nasty. The children’s mother knows what she is like, but still agrees to go and stay with her. The children are furious and say there is no obligation as she is only a distant relation by marriage: they have a better grasp of the situation than their mother does. Unfortunately, she is a sucker and a pushover: she would feel guilty and selfish if she didn’t accept the poor lonely old lady’s invitation.
In any case, we are damned if we do obey or confront such people and damned if we don’t. Failure to assert ourselves has serious consequences, but even worse things may follow when we do try to state our positions, protect our interests and defend ourselves against attack.
The boy, Chris, realises soon after arrival that they have been got there under false pretences: Elaine, the second in command in the circle, informs them that they will be responsible not only for cooking and other household tasks but also for bathing, dressing and undressing the apparently helpless old lady. Chris does stand up to Aunt Maria – he makes some very funny remarks - but when he tells her a few home truths and accuses her of murder, she loses her temper and turns him into a wolf.
Aunt Maria springs the trap
After doing this terrible thing, Aunt Maria behaves as though nothing has happened and expects everyone else to do the same. Receiving a terrible injury and being expected to carry on afterwards as if nothing has happened is something I have experienced many times for myself. When one of my sisters was sent away by our step-mother, she was never mentioned and we carried on as normal without her as if she had never existed. The same thing happened when my step-mother left.
Chris’s mother refuses to believe that he has gone missing. She won’t listen to her daughter, Mig, when she tries to tell her; she finds plausible explanations for his absence: he is in another room or has gone out. She just doesn’t see the evidence that Chris is no longer living in the house.
Eventually she says that he stayed behind in London. Aunt Maria has made the children’s mother think this way by laying an injunction, a kind of spell, on her. Worse yet, Mig’s drawing attention to Chris’s absence has only served to reinforce the injunction.
Aunt Maria then plays the “as if” game: she mentions various household activities as if Mig and her mother were staying with her for good. She behaves as if it were a done deal. She completely ignores the essential issues including the fact that they have other commitments, goals and interests and lives of their own to live; she never even mentions the decisions, the sacrifices, the realities and practicalities that would be involved in taking such a drastic step.
This is the most significant, and most painful, part of the book for me. What Aunt Maria does is uncannily similar to what happened to me when I was very young, could not look after my interests and had no one to do this for me. I was too overwhelmed to be able to stand up for myself. I was tricked into consenting because the dice were loaded against me. I went along with someone else’s plans for me, plans that ruined many years of my life.
Mig’s mother goes along with Aunt Maria’s wishes as if the old lady had made a perfectly reasonable request, as if abandoning their old lives, her children’s schools and her job would be a perfectly natural, normal and trivial action to take. She thinks it is the only thing she can do, as the old lady is so helpless on her own – this despite everything she has seen that demonstrates otherwise, despite having said that Aunt Maria could do a lot more for herself if she wanted to and despite her earlier recognition of Aunt Maria’s selfishness and manipulative behaviour, which made her want to kill her.
The children’s mother behaves like someone under an evil spell – which she actually is. She makes many excuses for Aunt Maria’s behaviour and seems resigned to her new life, she can’t altogether be blamed for this but it does make life difficult for her children. Being dependent on someone in this state who leads you to disaster is frightening, dangerous and damaging.
I have seen this kind of scenario enacted many times in a work environment. People who made my warning bells ring were appointed to positions that they were obviously (to me) completely unsuitable for. I am not talking about mere incompetence: there was something sinister at work. These people did a lot of damage and wasted a lot of resources. I used to blame the people who did the recruiting, but came to realise that they had been duped. They just couldn’t see what I could see – or sense.
The painful awakening
Acting on a suggestion from some allies, enemies of Aunt Maria, Mig arranges for her mother to see the ghost who has been appearing in Chris’s room. This breaks the spell. Mig’s mother is in touch with reality again. A huge outburst of anger follows when she thinks of all she has had to do for the evil old woman. People who escape from energy vampires and mind controllers and who come to their senses after being hypnotised into doing things that they would never have considered if they had been in their right minds and a healthy state often react in this way.
Outrage and murderous thoughts after the awakening from the nightmare are common: I have experienced them myself. Mig’s mother is lucky to have been under such a malign enchantment for only a short time, as opposed to being born into it and having to endure it all through her formative years the way I did.
Anger in these circumstances can be beneficial: it can help victims to reach critical mass and escape velocity. It is a justifiable reaction to neglect and ill treatment. It is a sign that people have woken up to the realisation that they have been controlled and enslaved.
Sometimes we get angry when we reach zero tolerance. This too can help us to break out of states of mind that feel like evil spells. In Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore by Sheri S. Tepper, Marianne gets angry and becomes forceful when she has had enough of living in a dream world and of the actions of the murderess Madame Delubovoska. She mentions taking revenge. She gains in stature and her enemies diminish. This blasts her out of the dream world.
There is more material to come: there is still plenty of juice left in the lemon. The third and final part of this article about Black Maria will be published in the near future.
