[I saw the movie this afternoon. It's awful, and beautiful, and the most disgusting movie I've ever seen. What annoys me somewhat is how they changed Johanna; thus, my choice to write her here. In the movie, it felt like they were trying to make her seem more innocent, softer, younger; I know she's 16, but in the play, it seemed like she did a lot more and had a larger part, especially involving Fogg. (By the way, the first paragraph of this refers to how Fogg said she was especially bad, since she sang all day and night. They left this out of the movie, and also they never showed her singing in the asylum.)
The songs played about on her lips, and to be stifled in such a place an insane asylum was to feel as trapped as if she was back home, only now she did not have her pensive silences, her birds, her silks, her great views: she had only the ravings of the lunatics and the beatings of Fogg. She sang. She sang every day, since the songs would not leave her mind – songs of hope, songs of love, songs of Anthony. She suffered for it, but for all he knew he was beating just another lunatic, not what she really was.
And what was she? If she had grown up in a different life, maybe she would have been more confident in herself, but now, her hands clenching the bars until her knuckles were bloodless, she could wonder. Was she, then, actually insane? To refuse the demands of the judge? It was true that he had raised her, raised her as his own – but like a daughter, not a wife, and he was easily four times her age, or five. She did not want him; some part of her, perhaps, loved him, but as one loves an uncle, a father, a grandfather. Not a husband, not a lover.
But Anthony's existence proved she wasn't crazy for this, since his existence proved all her hopes rang true. When her thoughts turned to him, his pale, sun-bleached hair, his smooth, unblemished skin, his blue eyes, his hands in hers, she wanted to melt, and although she could not ever think of what to say, the songs would come to her lips again, although these were happier songs: no longer did she long to be free and on her own, she longed now for Anthony, a future she knew was no idle fantasy, but a reality, a true future. Why, just in a few days, they'd be hand in hand, saying their wedding vows. And then – and then –
But the days passed, with no sign of him. Sunday went by, and Monday and days and days until the dates were lost among the sounds of the crazed women she shared a room with. At first she had merely stood at her window, and called to the night air, and watched in vain for her Anthony to come traipsing down the street with a brilliant plan for her escape – but then she began to fear, and as the weeks passed, she let herself stop hoping a little bit. Well, maybe he didn't know where she was; maybe he didn't have the means to rescue her.
Maybe he'd never come. Maybe he didn't care.
But he would, he did – he had to: the thought of it was all that kept her going. It was the blood that pulsed through her veins, and it was all the life that she had left. Days, she told herself – that's all he needs, days or weeks. Not even months. He'll come, and soon.
As the weeks went by, she waned, grew wan, paler; although she could not see her own face, she saw it in her hands, her forearms; now, the only thing that seemed to be growing was her hair. Was this life of unfulfilled hopes and malnutrition and lunatics worth it? Would it be better to marry Turpin?
No, she told herself, and held fast: this is better, because my Anthony will come.
Although her mind was swimming with doubts, she stuck to it, because something, anything, was better than giving in and letting the world do with her what it would.