Fingersmith is the story of orphan Sue Trinder. Raised as a thief, she leaves her family of theives to jump into a plot that will bring the household money.
Sue Trinder is irreverent, cunning and surprisingly complex, as are the cast of characters that surround her. While clearly on the wrong side of the law, Waters paints a young woman full of potential, while subtly but intently analyzing various social issues.
The Theme of Love in Fingersmith
Love is deeply complex in this romp through history. Sue loves her "mother" the matron of the family of thieves, with all her heart. Her departure to take part in the subterfuge of a rich young heiress is just as poignant as any child leaving home for the first time. And although she clearly desires the money the plan will bring, never once does she consider leaving her make-shift family without a share of the funds.
Part of the family are John and Dainty. The young couple are not the brightest of people, and John's cruelty is often enough to make a reader flinch. Dainty is soft, sweet, empty headed and on the rough side. Their relationship is emblematic of the entire novel; there is no reason for the them to stay together, but the love between them is strong enough to keep them together. By the end, the reader has come to appreciate Daisy's simple kindness in many ways, which is certainly a sign of Waters skill as an author.
Love is also the impetus behind Sue's relationship with Maud, the young heiress. Waters does an astounding job of showing the growing attraction and desire between the two women while making it more background than foreground. That doesn’t mean, however, that it loses any of the intimacy of a blossoming relationship.
The Theme of Family in Fingersmith
This is a complex and heavy issue throughout the novel. In one sense, family is what one makes of it, including who is a part of it. Sue's family is a ragtag bunch of thieves and charlatans, all with their own motives and desires. Nonetheless, they are a family unit: one that provides security in a world that is constantly under threat.
Maud's family, on the other hand, is one of degradation and ill use. Her uncle is a boorish, repellant man who makes Maud read pornographic texts to his male guests. He has so degraded her that she is willing to do anything, to go along with any scheme, in order to flee the only family she thinks she has.
The subtext in this is that the family you belong to isn’t necessarily the one that will love you most. And when push comes to shove, Sue finds that although her family is not what she thought it was, it has not diminished in any way the love she feels for her "mother." Similarly, her mother comes to realize that the person she thought of as more important than Sue was so far removed from her, that Sue is truly the daughter she loves.
About the Author
Sarah Waters is the author of historical fiction novels Tipping the Velvet, The Night Watch, and Affinity. Tipping the Velvet has been made into a movie, and Fingersmith was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Orange Prize, and won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical crime Fiction and the South Bank Show Award for Literature. It, too, has been adapted for television. Her newest novel, The Little Stranger, has just hit bookstores. She is one of the few authors to write lesbian characters for a mainstream audience. She has a PhD in Literature and lives in London.
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Virago Press 2002 (reprint 2009). ISBN: 978-1-86049-883-1.
Victoria Oldham - Victoria is a freelance writer from Southern California, currently living in the Midlands of England with her partner. She is in the ...
