Rebekka Vaark

An English woman, who is sent over to America to marry a man she has never meet before, Jacob Vaark. She was sent over because of her rebellious and un-ladylike personaltiy. She has many difficulties in America, and at the end of the book is not happy. She ends up in in a new world with strange people that will change her life forever.

~" But the younger woman who answered his shout in the crown was plump, comely and capable. Worth every day of the long search made necessary because taking over the patroonship required a wofe, and because he wanted a certain kind of mate: an unchurched woman of childbearing age, obediant but not groveling, literate but not proud, independent bu nurturing. And he would accept no scold. Just as the first mate's repot descibed her Rebekka was ideal. There was not a shrewish bone in her body. She never raised her voice in anger. Saw to his needs, made the tenderest dumplings, took to chores in a land completely strange to her with enthusiasm and invention, cheerful as a bluebird. Or used to be. Three dead infants in a row, followed by the accidental death of Patrician, their five-year-old..." (pg.23-4)

~" If anything she threw herself more vigorously into the farmwork..." (pg. 24)

She is hard-working. However she has a hard time facing her problems or dealing with them.

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~" On a winter day when I am still small Lina asks her if she can give me the dead daughter's shoes. [...] Mistress agrees but when she sees me in them she sudden sits down in the snow and cries." (pg. 81)

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This shows when Rebekka is faced with her issues face-on she does not handle them properly. She rarely even deals with them; she only avoids them.

~" The stubborn one, the one with too many questions and a rebellious mouth." (pg. 87)

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The fact that she questions society means that she doesn't quite fit with it. She and Jacob parallel in this way in that they are very separate from society's ideas.

~" The one where she might have children and therefore guarenteed some affection." (pg. 91)

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Rebekka was first 'abandoned' by her family in England. She then feels abandonment everytime Jacob leaves town for work, and then evntually with his death. Because of this she feels that a child would have filled this void. Eventually however she turns to religion and a relationship with God to fill the void.

~" Yet the thought of what he life would have beenn had she stayed crushed into those streets, spat on by lords and prostitutes, curtseying, curtseying, curtseying, still repelled her. Here she answered to her husband alone and paid polite attendance..." (pg. 89)

She never fit with society, a structured society that is. However when she is in this new land, alothough with manhy challenges she feels more at home. She definately prefers it.

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