Hypocrisy And Alchemy In The Lady's Not For Burning

Hypocrisy and alchemy: two seemingly distinctive concepts, yet so similar in retrospect. Both distinguish expectations from reality in life and suggest two levels of living, which are major topics in The Lady’s Not for Burning. Through hypocrisy and alchemy, the two levels of life include one of literal analysis and complex, imaginative analysis. Jennet’s father was a man who was born into a world of math and science. Rather early into his life, his quest to finding gold out of simple metals through alchemy began. The results of his endeavors were a failure, and he ultimately wasted his time trying to find something out of nothing. Because of this, Jennet uses her speech to express how she chooses to live differently and accept reality for …show more content…
Thomas asks if Jennet’s father drowned in hypocrisy, and Jennet clarifies that he did not drown in hypocrisy, rather “In the pursuit of alchemy.”. This response helps tie the two concepts of hypocrisy and alchemy together because of their similar suggestions of life. In hypocrisy, the two levels of life are what is told and what is actually done. Likewise, in alchemy, the two levels are what actually exists or happens and what is trying to be existent or happening. Her responses are in broken, incomplete sentences such as, “In refusal to accept [Thomas’s] dictum ‘It is/ What it is.’” The use of incomplete sentences to answer Thomas’s question shows an uneasiness in Jennet to the fact that her father spent so much time trying to prove the nonexistent properties of life through alchemy. The response expresses to the audience the reason why Jennet chooses to live as realistically and literally as she …show more content…
Parallelism is used in the sentence by describing how her father rushed through major milestones of life and failed in savoring the importance of these nourishing milestones with Jennet. Her father “…matured by a progression, gained/ Experience by correlation, expanded/ Into marriage by contraction…”, which shows that he matured, obtained life experience, eloped quickly and didn’t waste any time when it came to the events in which Jennet should have, theoretically, been allowed to experience and allow to define her life. The mathematical and scientific diction comes to further show a difference in thought process between Jennet and her father. Through these lines, Jennet is further characterized as someone more realistic, because she wants to believe Thomas when he says, “It is what it is…”, and not think that maturing, gaining experience, and getting married are scientific test subjects. Furthermore, the parallelism seems to come to a break when his father had children. “…By certain physical dynamics…” her father “…formulated [Jennet].”, expressing her uncertainty in her existence and her relationship with her father. Her father seemed as if he knew exactly what he was doing when it came to his own life, and his life after he had Jennet was a blur. She never knew much about him, and he never knew much about her. That is why