Sucksby, it turns out, has more of Bill Sykes in her than Fagin. Sucksby is thus able to convince Susan to take part in a scheme designed to seduce Maud out of her inheritance by posing as a maid, gaining her confidence and convincing her to marry Mr. Sucksby is a kind of Fagin-like maternal overseer of a gang of petty thieves and criminals who essentially adopts Susan out of the orphanage and treats her like her favorite. Sucksby before she is committed into the mental asylum in which she dies. She is so fearful of family that she leaves her baby in the care of Mrs.

Marianne LillyĬhristopher's sister Marianne is a woman of wealth whose inheritance is pursued with vigor. Like so many others, he is not who he seems yet at the same time is exactly what he seems. The truth turns out to be considerably more intricate as he is revealed to wield a much more complex influence over future events and familial revelations than it would at first seem likely. The pornography entrepreneur is portrayed by Susan as Maud’s cruel uncle from whom she must escape.

The escape attempt climaxes part one, but in a way that is completely unexpected to Susan and reveals what seems to be a shocking truth about Maud which Maud’s narration explains in a way that leaves those truths even murkier. Susan is enlisted to facilitate her escape from this misery through an arranged marriage despite having fallen in love with her. Maud has been portrayed as a cloistered innocent living with her uncle and helping him with his deviant desire to create a pornographic dictionary. Maud, however, is also being deceived, so her narration is not necessarily one of pure clarification. Maud narrates the middle section of the novel, by which time much of what is thought to be true in the first part has been revealed as deception. The course of the nature of the relationship between Sue and Maud is one which reveals a complex tangle of secrets, lies and corrupted lineages.

Connotation endows the word with a significantly different meaning, however, when Sue becomes maid to Maud Lilly. In part one she introduces herself as an orphaned who is the fingersmith of the title - on its surface meaning, a petty thief. Sue Trinder narrates the first and third sections of the novel. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

Waters fingersmith